birdwatcher

birdwatcher is a small HTTP server meant to provide an API defined by Barry O'Donovan's birds-eye to the BIRD routing daemon.

Installation

You will need to have go installed to build the package. Running go get github.com/ecix/birdwatcher will give you a binary. You might need to cross-compile it for your bird-running servive (GOARCH and GOOS are your friends).

We provide a Makefile for more advanced compilation/configuration. Running make linux will create a Linux executable (by default for amd64, but that is configurable by providing the ARCH argument to the Makefile).

Configuration

An example config with sane defaults is provided in etc/ecix/birdwatcher.conf. You should be able to use it out of the box. If you need to change it, it is well-commented and hopefully intuitive. If you do not know how to configure it, please consider opening an issue.

Why

The INEX implementation of birdseye runs PHP, which is not always desirable (and performant) in a routeserver setting. By using Go, we are able to work with regular binaries, which means deployment and maintenance might be more convenient.

How

In the background birdwatcher runs the birdc client, sends commands and parses the result. It also leverages simple caching techniques to help reduce the load on the bird service.

Who

Initially developed by Daniel and MC from Netnod in two days at the RIPE 73 IXP Tools Hackathon in Madrid, Spain.

Running bird and parsing the results was added by Veit Heller on behalf of ecix.