~$ BGP Looking Glass

>What is a BGP Looking Glass?

A BGP Looking Glass (LG) server is an essential networking tool that allows network engineers to view the routing tables of external routers located in various geographic regions. When you query a Looking Glass, you are essentially asking a remote router: "How do you currently reach this destination from your location?"

This tool leverages data from Route Collectors (RRCs) deployed worldwide (via platforms like RIPE NCC) to give you a global perspective on how BGP routes propagate across the Internet backbone.

>Why check the AS-PATH?

The AS-PATH attribute is the sequence of Autonomous Systems that routing information has traversed to reach a specific destination. Analyzing the AS-PATH is critical for several cybersecurity and network administration tasks:

• [*]Routing Loops & Inefficiencies: Discover suboptimal routing where traffic bounces between unexpected ISPs.
• [*]BGP Route Leaks & Hijacking: Detect malicious or accidental routing anomalies when traffic is routed through untrusted nations or unauthorized ASNs.
• [*]Peering Verification: Confirm that your new BGP peering sessions are properly propagating to Tier-1 carriers worldwide.

While a BGP Looking Glass shows you the logical hops (ASNs) taken across the internet, you may also want to map the physical router-level hops. To trace the exact IP nodes your packets traverse, we recommend combining this analysis with a visual IP Traceroute.