nxthdr

nxthdr, pronounced /ˈnɛkst ˈhɛdə˞/ or simply “Next Header”, is an initiative to offer metrology capabilities to researchers and students to study and learn about the Internet.

It integrates high-speed probing capabilities with self-service¹ peering control, offering the community a unique platform. nxthdr enables Internet-scale route tracing while managing and collecting BGP advertisements from diverse vantage points and multiple IXPs, powered by as215011.

Every aspect of nxthdr is open and transparent:

• The infrastructure is managed entirely as open-source code.
• The data collected is freely accessible¹, with no restrictions or need for justification.
• The tools powering the platform are all open-source, such as risotto and saimiris.
• The roadmap of the project is public and participatory, inviting ideas and contributions.
• The bookkeeping is complete and publicly available.

Flagship Projects

Risotto

risotto is a BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP) collector. Each as215011 router sends BMP messages to risotto, which stores the updates in a ClickHouse database. By maintaining a state, risotto ensures accurate and comprehensive BGP data, which is made freely available to the community for analysis.

Saimiris

saimiris is a high-speed probing platform that provides the essential plumbing for users to perform traceroute-like and ping-like measurements from multiple vantage points. The results are stored in a ClickHouse database and made available to the community for analysis. At its core, saimiris leverages Caracat, a high-speed ICMP/UDP IPv4/v6 probing library. This library serves as the foundation for reimplementing powerful tools such as yarrp and zmap.

Get Involved

Join us on Discord to discuss the project and get involved!