Manual Page

routinator - RPKI relying party software

Date:2020-05-06 Author:Martin Hoffmann Copyright:2019-2020 - NLnet Labs Version:0.7.0

Synopsis

routinator options init init-options

routinator options vrps vrps-options -o output-file -f format

routinator options validate validate-options -a asn -p prefix

routinator options server server-options

routinator options update update-options

routinator man -o file

routinator -h

routinator -V

Description

Routinator collects and processes Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) data. It validates the Route Origin Attestations contained in the data and makes them available to your BGP routing workflow.

It can either run in one-shot mode outputting a list of validated route origins in various formats or as a server for the RPKI-to-Router (RTR) protocol that routers often implement to access the data, or via HTTP.

These modes and additional operations can be chosen via commands. For the available commands, see Commands below.

Options

The available options are:

-c path, --config=path

Provides the path to a file containing basic configuration. If this option is not given, Routinator will try to use $HOME/.routinator.conf if that exists. If that doesn't exist, either, default values for the options as described here are used.

See Configuration File below for more information on the format and contents of the configuration file.

-b dir, --base-dir=dir

Specifies the base directory to keep status information in. Unless overwritten by the -r or -t options, the local repository will be kept in the sub-directory repository and the TALs will be kept in the sub-directory tals.

If omitted, the base directory defaults to $HOME/.rpki-cache.

-r dir, --repository-dir=dir

Specifies the directory to keep the local repository in. This is the place where Routinator stores the RPKI data it has collected and thus is a copy of all the data referenced via the trust anchors.

-t dir, --tal-dir=dir

Specifies the directory containing the trust anchor locators (TALs) to use. Trust anchor locators are the starting points for collecting and validating RPKI data. See Trust Anchor Locators for more information on what should be present in this directory.

-x file, --exceptions=file

Provides the path to a local exceptions file. The option can be used multiple times to specify more than one file to use. Each file is a JSON file as described in RFC 8416. It lists both route origins that should be filtered out of the output as well as origins that should be added.

--strict

If this option is present, the repository will be validated in strict mode following the requirements laid out by the standard documents very closely. With the current RPKI repository, using this option will lead to a rather large amount of invalid route origins and should therefore not be used in practice.

See Relaxed Validation below for more information.

--stale=policy

This option defines how deal with stale objects. In RPKI, manifests and CRLs can be stale if the time given in their next-update field is in the past, indicating that an update to the object was scheduled but didn't happen. This can be because of an operational issue at the issuer or an attacker trying to replay old objects.

There are three possible policies that define how Routinator should treat stale objects.

A policy of reject instructs Routinator to consider all stale objects invalid. This will result in all material published by the CA issuing this manifest and CRL to be invalid including all material of any child CA.

The warn policy will allow Routinator to consider any stale object to be valid. It will, however, print a warning in the log allowing an operator to follow up on the issue. This is the default policy if the option is not provided.

Finally, the accept policy will cause Routinator to quietly accept any stale object as valid.

--allow-dubious-hosts

As a precaution, Routinator will reject rsync and HTTPS URIs from RPKI data with dubious host names. In particular, it will reject the name localhost, host names that consist of IP addresses, and a host name that contains an explicit port.

This option allows to disable this filtering.

--disable-rsync

If this option is present, rsync is disabled and only RRDP will be used.

--rsync-command=command

Provides the command to run for rsync. This is only the command itself. If you need to provide options to rsync, use the rsync-args configuration file setting instead.

If this option is not given, Routinator will simply run rsync and hope that it is in the path.

--rsync-timeout=seconds

Sets the number of seconds an rsync command is allowed to run before it is terminated early. This protects against hanging rsync commands that prevent Routinator from continuing. The default is 300 seconds which should be long enough except for very slow networks.

--disable-rrdp

If this option is present, RRDP is disabled and only rsync will be used.

--rrdp-timeout=seconds

Sets the timeout in seconds for any RRDP-related network operation, i.e., connects, reads, and writes. If this option is omitted, the default timeout of 30 seconds is used. Set the option to 0 to disable the timeout.

--rrdp-connect-timeout=seconds

Sets the timeout in seconds for RRDP connect requests. If omitted, the general timeout will be used.

--rrdp-local-addr=addr

If present, sets the local address that the RRDP client should bind to when doing outgoing requests.

--rrdp-root-cert=path

This option provides a path to a file that contains a certificate in PEM encoding that should be used as a trusted certificate for HTTPS server authentication. The option can be given more than once.

Providing this option does not disable the set of regular HTTPS authentication trust certificates.

--rrdp-proxy=uri

This option provides the URI of a proxy to use for all HTTP connections made by the RRDP client. It can be either an HTTP or a SOCKS URI. The option can be given multiple times in which case proxies are tried in the given order.

--dirty

If this option is present, unused files and directories will not be deleted from the repository directory after each validation run.

--validation-threads=count

Sets the number of threads to distribute work to for validation. Note that the current processing model validates trust anchors all in one go, so you are likely to see less than that number of threads used throughout the validation run.

-v, --verbose

Print more information. If given twice, even more information is printed.

More specifically, a single -v increases the log level from the default of warn to info, specifying it more than once increases it to debug.

-q, --quiet

Print less information. Given twice, print nothing at all.

A single -q will drop the log level to error. Repeating -q more than once turns logging off completely.

--syslog

Redirect logging output to syslog.

This option is implied if a command is used that causes Routinator to run in daemon mode.

--syslog-facility=facility

If logging to syslog is used, this option can be used to specify the syslog facility to use. The default is daemon.

--logfile=path

Redirect logging output to the given file.

-h, --help

Print some help information.

-V, --version

Print version information.

Commands

Routinator provides a number of operations around the local RPKI repository. These can be requested by providing different commands on the command line.

init

Prepares the local repository directories and the TAL directory for running Routinator. Specifically, makes sure the local repository directory exists, and creates the TAL directory and fills it with the TALs of the five RIRs.

For more information about TALs, see Trust Anchor Locators below.

-f, --force

Forces installation of the TALs even if the TAL directory already exists.

--accept-arin-rpa

Before you can use the ARIN TAL, you need to agree to the ARIN Relying Party Agreement (RPA). You can find it at https://www.arin.net/resources/manage/rpki/rpa.pdf and explicitly agree to it via this option. This explicit agreement is necessary in order to install the ARIN TAL.

--decline-arin-rpa

If, after reading the ARIN Relying Party Agreement, you decide you do not or cannot agree to it, this option allows you to skip installation of the ARIN TAL. Note that this means Routinator will not have access to any information published for resources assigned under ARIN.

vrps

This command requests that Routinator update the local repository and then validate the Route Origin Attestations in the repository and output the valid route origins, which are also known as Validated ROA Payload or VRPs, as a list.

-o file, --output=file

Specifies the output file to write the list to. If this option is missing or file is - the list is printed to standard output.

-f format, --format=format

The output format to use. Routinator currently supports the following formats:

csv

The list is formatted as lines of comma-separated values of the prefix in slash notation, the maximum prefix length, the autonomous system number, and an abbreviation for the trust anchor the entry is derived from. The latter is the name of the TAL file without the extension .tal.

This is the default format used if the -f option is missing.

csvcompat

The same as csv except that all fields are embedded in double quotes and the autonomous system number is given without the prefix AS. This format is pretty much identical to the CSV produced by the RIPE NCC Validator.

csvext

An extended version of csv each line contains these comma-separated values: the rsync URI of the ROA the line is taken from (or "N/A" if it isn't from a ROA), the autonomous system number, the prefix in slash notation, the maximum prefix length, the not-before date and not-after date of the validity of the ROA.

This format was used in the RIPE NCC RPKI Validator version 1. That version produces one file per trust anchor. This is not currently supported by Routinator -- all entries will be in one single output file.

json

The list is placed into a JSON object with a single element roas which contains an array of objects with four elements each: The autonomous system number of the network authorized to originate a prefix in asn, the prefix in slash notation in prefix, the maximum prefix length of the announced route in maxLength, and the trust anchor from which the authorization was derived in ta. This format is identical to that produced by the RIPE NCC RPKI Validator except for different naming of the trust anchor. Routinator uses the name of the TAL file without the extension .tal whereas the RIPE NCC Validator has a dedicated name for each.

openbgpd

Choosing this format causes Routinator to produce a roa- set configuration item for the OpenBGPD configuration.

bird

Choosing this format causes Routinator to produce a roa table configuration item for the BIRD configuration.

bird2

Choosing this format causes Routinator to produce a roa table configuration item for the BIRD2 configuration.

rpsl

This format produces a list of RPSL objects with the authorization in the fields route, origin, and source. In addition, the fields descr, mnt-by, created, and last-modified, are present with more or less meaningful values.

summary

This format produces a summary of the content of the RPKI repository. For each trust anchor, it will print the number of verified ROAs and VRPs. Note that this format does not take filters into account. It will always provide numbers for the complete repository.

none

This format produces no output whatsoever.

-n, --noupdate

The repository will not be updated before producing the list.

--complete

If any of the rsync commands needed to update the repository failed, Routinator completes the operation and exits with status code 2. Normally, it would exit with status code 0 indicating success.

-a asn, --filter-asn=asn

Only output VRPs for the given ASN. The option can be given multiple times, in which case VRPs for all provided ASNs are provided. ASNs can be given with or without the prefix AS.

-p prefix, --filter-prefix=prefix

Only output VRPs with an address prefix that covers the given prefix, i.e., whose prefix is equal to or less specific than the given prefix. This will include VRPs regardless of their ASN and max length. In other words, the output will include all VRPs that need to be considered when deciding whether an announcement for the prefix is RPKI valid or invalid.

The option can be given multiple times, in which case VRPs for all prefixes are provided. It can also be combined with one or more ASN filters. Then all matching VRPs are included. That is, filters combine as "or" not "and."

validate

This command can be used to perform RPKI route origin validation for a route announcement. Routinator will determine whether the provided announcement is RPKI valid, invalid, or not found.

-a asn, --asn=asn

The AS number of the autonomous system that originated the route announcement. ASNs can be given with or without the prefix AS.

-p prefix, --prefix=prefix

The address prefix the route announcement is for.

-j, --json

A detailed analysis on the reasoning behind the validation is printed in JSON format including lists of the VPRs that caused the particular result. If this option is omitted, Routinator will only print the determined state.

-n, --noupdate

The repository will not be updated before performing validation.

--complete

If any of the rsync commands needed to update the repository failed, Routinator completes the operation and exits with status code 2. Normally, it would exit with status code 0 indicating success.

server

This command causes Routinator to act as a server for the RPKI-to-Router (RTR) and HTTP protocols. In this mode, Routinator will read all the TALs (See Trust Anchor Locators below) and will stay attached to the terminal unless the -d option is given.

The server will periodically update the local repository, every ten minutes by default, notify any clients of changes, and let them fetch validated data. It will not, however, reread the trust anchor locators. Thus, if you update them, you will have to restart Routinator.

You can provide a number of addresses and ports to listen on for RTR and HTTP through command line options or their configuration file equivalent. Currently, Routinator will only start listening on these ports after an initial validation run has finished.

It will not listen on any sockets unless explicitly specified. It will still run and periodically update the repository. This might be useful for use with vrps mode with the -n option.

-d, --detach

If present, Routinator will detach from the terminal after a successful start.

--rtr=addr:port

Specifies a local address and port to listen on for incoming RTR connections.

Routinator supports both protocol version 0 defined in RFC 6810 and version 1 defined in RFC 8210. However, it does not support router keys introduced in version 1. IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in square brackets. You can provide the option multiple times to let Routinator listen on multiple address-port pairs.

--http=addr:port

Specifies the address and port to listen on for incoming HTTP connections. See HTTP Service below for more information on the HTTP service provided by Routinator.

--listen-systemd

The RTR listening socket will be acquired from systemd via socket activation. Use this option together with systemd's socket units to allow a Routinator running as a regular user to bind to the default RTR port 323.

Currently, all TCP listener sockets handed over by systemd will be used for the RTR protocol.

--refresh=seconds

The amount of seconds the server should wait after having finished updating and validating the local repository before starting to update again. The next update will be earlier if objects in the repository expire earlier. The default value is 600 seconds.

--retry=seconds

The amount of seconds to suggest to an RTR client to wait before trying to request data again if that failed. The default value is 600 seconds, as recommended in RFC 8210.

--expire=seconds

The amount of seconds to an RTR client can keep using data if it cannot refresh it. After that time, the client should discard the data. Note that this value was introduced in version 1 of the RTR protocol and is thus not relevant for clients that only implement version 0. The default value, as recommended in RFC 8210, is 7200 seconds.

--history=count

In RTR, a client can request to only receive the changes that happened since the last version of the data it had seen. This option sets how many change sets the server will at most keep. If a client requests changes from an older version, it will get the current full set.

Note that routers typically stay connected with their RTR server and therefore really only ever need one single change set. Additionally, if RTR server or router are restarted, they will have a new session with new change sets and need to exchange a full data set, too. Thus, increasing the value probably only ever increases memory consumption.

The default value is 10.

--pid-file=path

States a file which will be used in daemon mode to store the processes PID. While the process is running, it will keep the file locked.

--working-dir=path

The working directory for the daemon process. In daemon mode, Routinator will change to this directory while detaching from the terminal.

--chroot=path

The root directory for the daemon process. If this option is provided, the daemon process will change its root directory to the given directory. This will only work if all other paths provided via the configuration or command line options are under this directory.

--user=user-name

The name of the user to change to for the daemon process. It this option is provided, Routinator will run as that user after the listening sockets for HTTP and RTR have been created. The option has no effect unless --detach is also used.

--group=group-name

The name of the group to change to for the daemon process. It this option is provided, Routinator will run as that group after the listening sockets for HTTP and RTR have been created. The option has no effect unless --detach is also used.

update

Updates the local repository by resyncing all known publication points. The command will also validate the updated repository to discover any new publication points that appear in the repository and fetch their data.

As such, the command really is a shortcut for running routinator vrps -f none.

--complete

If any of the rsync commands needed to update the repository failed, Routinator completes the operation and exits with status code 2. Normally, it would exit with status code 0 indicating success.

man

Displays the manual page, i.e., this page.

-o file, --output=file

If this option is provided, the manual page will be written to the given file instead of displaying it. Use - to output the manual page to standard output.

Trust Anchor Locators

RPKI uses trust anchor locators, or TALs, to identify the location and public keys of the trusted root CA certificates. Routinator keeps these TALs in files in the TAL directory which can be set by the -t option. If the -b option is used instead, the TAL directory will be in the subdirectory tals under the directory specified in this option. The default location, if no options are used at all is $HOME/.rpki-cache/tals.

This directory can be created and populated with the TALs of the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) via the init command.

If the directory does exist, Routinator will use all files with an extension of .tal in this directory. This means that you can add and remove trust anchors by adding and removing files in this directory. If you add files, make sure they are in the format described by RFC 7730 or the upcoming RFC 8630.

Configuration File

Instead of providing all options on the command line, they can also be provided through a configuration file. Such a file can be selected through the -c option. If no configuration file is specified this way but a file named $HOME/.routinator.conf is present, this file is used.

The configuration file is a file in TOML format. In short, it consists of a sequence of key-value pairs, each on its own line. Strings are to be enclosed in double quotes. Lists can be given by enclosing a comma-separated list of values in square brackets.

The configuration file can contain the following entries. All path values are interpreted relative to the directory the configuration file is located in. All values can be overridden via the command line options.

repository-dir

A string containing the path to the directory to store the local repository in. This entry is mandatory.

tal-dir

A string containing the path to the directory that contains the Trust Anchor Locators. This entry is mandatory.

exceptions

A list of strings, each containing the path to a file with local exceptions. If missing, no local exception files are used.

strict

A boolean specifying whether strict validation should be employed. If missing, strict validation will not be used.

stale

A string specifying the policy for dealing with stale objects.

reject

Consider all stale objects invalid rendering all material published by the CA issuing the stale object to be invalid including all material of any child CA.

warn

Consider stale objects to be valid but print a warning to the log.

accept

Quietly consider stale objects valid.

allow-dubious-hosts

A boolean value that, if present and true, disables Routinator's filtering of dubious host names in rsync and HTTPS URIs from RPKI data.

disable-rsync

A boolean value that, if present and true, turns off the use of rsync.

rsync-command

A string specifying the command to use for running rsync. The default is simply rsync.

rsync-args

A list of strings containing the arguments to be passed to the rsync command. Each string is an argument of its own.

If this option is not provided, Routinator will try to find out if your rsync understands the --contimeout option and, if so, will set it to 10 thus letting connection attempts time out after ten seconds. If your rsync is too old to support this option, no arguments are used.

rsync-timeout

An integer value specifying the number seconds an rsync command is allowed to run before it is being terminated. The default if the value is missing is 300 seconds.

disable-rrdp

A boolean value that, if present and true, turns off the use of RRDP.

rrdp-timeout

An integer value that provides a timeout in seconds for all individual RRDP-related network operations, i.e., connects, reads, and writes. If the value is missing, a default timeout of 30 seconds will be used. Set the value to 0 to turn the timeout off.

rrdp-connect-timeout

An integer value that, if present, sets a separate timeout in seconds for RRDP connect requests only.

rrdp-local-addr

A string value that provides the local address to be used by RRDP connections.

rrdp-root-certs

A list of strings each providing a path to a file containing a trust anchor certificate for HTTPS authentication of RRDP connections. In addition to the certificates provided via this option, the system's own trust store is used.

rrdp-proxies

A list of string each providing the URI for a proxy for outgoing RRDP connections. The proxies are tried in order for each request. HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies are supported.

dirty

A boolean value which, if true, specifies that unused files and directories should not be deleted from the repository directory after each validation run. If left out, its value will be false and unused files will be deleted.

validation-threads

An integer value specifying the number of threads to be used during validation of the repository. If this value is missing, the number of CPUs in the system is used.

log-level

A string value specifying the maximum log level for which log messages should be emitted. The default is warn.

log

A string specifying where to send log messages to. This can be one of the following values:

default

Log messages will be sent to standard error if Routinator stays attached to the terminal or to syslog if it runs in daemon mode.

stderr

Log messages will be sent to standard error.

syslog

Log messages will be sent to syslog.

file

Log messages will be sent to the file specified through the log-file configuration file entry.

The default if this value is missing is, unsurprisingly, default.

log-file

A string value containing the path to a file to which log messages will be appended if the log configuration value is set to file. In this case, the value is mandatory.

syslog-facility

A string value specifying the syslog facility to use for logging to syslog. The default value if this entry is missing is daemon.

rtr-listen

An array of string values each providing the address and port which the RTR daemon should listen on in TCP mode. Address and port should be separated by a colon. IPv6 address should be enclosed in square brackets.

http-listen

An array of string values each providing the address and port which the HTTP service should listen on. Address and port should be separated by a colon. IPv6 address should be enclosed in square brackets.

listen-systemd

The RTR TCP listening socket will be acquired from systemd via socket activation. Use this option together with systemd's socket units to allow Routinator running as a regular user to bind to the default RTR port 323.

refresh

An integer value specifying the number of seconds Routinator should wait between consecutive validation runs in server mode. The next validation run will happen earlier, if objects expire earlier. The default is 600 seconds.

retry

An integer value specifying the number of seconds an RTR client is requested to wait after it failed to receive a data set. The default is 600 seconds.

expire

An integer value specifying the number of seconds an RTR client is requested to use a data set if it cannot get an update before throwing it away and continuing with no data at all. The default is 7200 seconds if it cannot get an update before throwing it away and continuing with no data at all. The default is 7200 seconds.

history-size

An integer value specifying how many change sets Routinator should keep in RTR server mode. The default is 10.

pid-file

A string value containing a path pointing to the PID file to be used in daemon mode.

working-dir

A string value containing a path to the working directory for the daemon process.

chroot

A string value containing the path any daemon process should use as its root directory.

user

A string value containing the user name a daemon process should run as.

group

A string value containing the group name a daemon process should run as.

tal-label

An array containing arrays of two string values mapping the name of a TAL file (without the path but including the extension) as given by the first string to the name of the TAL to be included where the TAL is referenced in output as given by the second string.

If the options missing or if a TAL isn't mentioned in the option, Routinator will construct a name for the TAL by using its file name (without the path) and dropping the extension.

HTTP Service

Routinator can provide an HTTP service allowing to fetch the Validated ROA Payload in various formats. The service does not support HTTPS and should only be used within the local network.

The service only supports GET requests with the following paths:

/metrics

Returns a set of monitoring metrics in the format used by Prometheus.

/status

Returns the current status of the Routinator instance. This is similar to the output of the /metrics endpoint but in a more human friendly format.

/version

Returns the version of the Routinator instance.

/api/v1/validity/as-number/prefix

Returns a JSON object describing whether the route announcement given by its origin AS number and address prefix is RPKI valid, invalid, or not found. The returned object is compatible with that provided by the RIPE NCC RPKI Validator. For more information, see https://ripe.net/support/documentation/developer-documentation/rpki-validator-api

/validity?asn=as-number&prefix=prefix

Same as above but with a more form-friendly calling convention.

In addition, the current set of VRPs is available for each output format at a path with the same name as the output format. E.g., the CSV output is available at /csv.

These paths accept filter expressions to limit the VRPs returned in the form of a query string. The field filter-asn can be used to filter for ASNs and the field filter-prefix can be used to filter for prefixes. The fields can be repeated multiple times.

This works in the same way as the options of the same name to the vrps command.

Relaxed Validation

The documents defining RPKI include a number of very strict rules regarding the formatting of the objects published in the RPKI repository. However, because PRKI reuses existing technology, real-world applications produce objects that do not follow these strict requirements.

As a consequence, a significant portion of the RPKI repository is actually invalid if the rules are followed. We therefore introduce two validation modes: strict and relaxed. Strict mode rejects any object that does not pass all checks laid out by the relevant RFCs. Relaxed mode ignores a number of these checks.

This memo documents the violations we encountered and are dealing with in relaxed validation mode.

Resource Certificates (RFC 6487)

Resource certificates are defined as a profile on the more general Internet PKI certificates defined in RFC 5280.

Subject and Issuer

The RFC restricts the type used for CommonName attributes to PrintableString, allowing only a subset of ASCII characters, while RFC 5280 allows a number of additional string types. At least one CA produces resource certificates with Utf8Strings.

In relaxed mode, we will only check that the general structure of the issuer and subject fields are correct and allow any number and types of attributes. This seems justified since RPKI explicitly does not use these fields.

Signed Objects (RFC 6488)

Signed objects are defined as a profile on CMS messages defined in RFC 5652.

DER Encoding

RFC 6488 demands all signed objects to be DER encoded while the more general CMS format allows any BER encoding -- DER is a stricter subset of the more general BER. At least one CA does indeed produce BER encoded signed objects.

In relaxed mode, we will allow BER encoding.

Note that this isn't just nit-picking. In BER encoding, octet strings can be broken up into a sequence of sub-strings. Since those strings are in some places used to carry encoded content themselves, such an encoding does make parsing significantly more difficult. At least one CA does produce such broken-up strings.

Signals

SIGUSR1: Reload TALs and restart validation

When receiving SIGUSR1, Routinator will attempt to reload the TALs and, if that succeeds, restart validation. If loading the TALs fails, Routinator will exit.

Exit Status

Upon success, the exit status 0 is returned. If any fatal error happens, the exit status will be 1. Some commands provide a --complete option which will cause the exit status to be 2 if any of the rsync commands to update the repository fail.