Can't fully understand how an ASN works.

[mobtrap]

Hello.

 

I'm planning to make my own hosting company and I want to have my ASN, but can't fully understand how it works. For example, how allocation works. Also, can I allocate ASN to IPs from different providers?

[Sir Asvald]

Sorry to be blunt, if you don't know what an ASN is you're not ready to start a hosting company...and starting a hosting company IS really expensive. 

 

Here is the a video explaining:

 

 

[jj9987]

The post above is a good introduction. I'll give some additional overview (simplified, not fully detailed) as to what to expect from all this.

 

ASN (Autonomous System Number) is assigned to an ISP or a service provider, who owns some IP prefix (be that IPv4 or IPv6). To get one, you first need to buy (or rent) yourself some IP space/prefix. IPv4 is really expensive, as there is a major shortage for it and cloud providers, who really need them, are really paying big bucks to get them. For IPv4, prices start at about 20-25$ USD per IP and no one is gonna bother selling smaller than /24 block these days (that is, 256 IP addresses).

 

Once you have acquired an IP block, you need to register them at your RIR (ARIN, APNIC, AFRINIC, LACNIC or RIPE). The registration also costs and there are quite a number of requirements involved. After that, you can start assigning the IPs to the servers. But to make them accessible from the Internet, you need to make setup BGP routing. Basically you need to configure BGP system on your outside router to publish that "hey, I know where x.x.x.x/x IP space is" and that info is then propagated to every other public router in the world, that deals with BGP. That's how users can eventually connect to your IPs/servers - all the routers inbetween know where the servers on your IPs are and where the packets should be forwarded to.

 

Not all cloud providers allow you to do any BGP. If you intend to have your own physical servers, you need to also consider where the servers will be, which IX it is connected to etc.

 

And of course all the other hosting company worries - uptime, reliability, stability, maintenance, customer support, network, redundancy, storage, CPU/RAM, firewalls etc.

[mobtrap]

13 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

The post above is a good introduction. I'll give some additional overview as to what to expect from all this.

 

ASN (Autonomous System Number) is assigned to an ISP or a service provider, who owns some IP prefix (be that IPv4 or IPv6). To get one, you first need to buy (or rent) yourself some IP space/prefix. IPv4 is really expensive, as there is a major shortage for it and cloud providers, who really need them, are really paying big bucks to get them. For IPv4, prices start at about 20-25$ USD per IP and no one is gonna bother selling smaller than /24 block these days (that is, 256 IP addresses).

 

Once you have acquired an IP block, you can start assigning them to servers. After that, you need to make your IP space accessible using BGP routing. Basically you need to configure BGP system on your outside router to publish that "hey, I know where x.x.x.x/x IP space is" and that info is then propagated to every other public router in the world, that deals with BGP. That's how users can eventually connect to your IPs/servers - all the routers inbetween know where the servers on your IPs are and where the packets should be forwarded to.

 

Not all cloud providers allow you to do any BGP. If you intend to have your own physical servers, you need to also consider where the servers will be, which IX it is connected to etc.

 

And of course all the other hosting company worries - uptime, reliability, stability, maintenance, customer support, network, redundancy, storage, CPU/RAM, firewalls etc.

Oh, so from what I understand, I can't just simply allocate an ASN to an IP address from a provider and another IP from another provider (the IP addresses not being owned by me)?

[jj9987]

2 hours ago, mxnugget said:

Oh, so from what I understand, I can't just simply allocate an ASN to an IP address from a provider and another IP from another provider (the IP addresses not being owned by me)?

Every IP block is assigned to a specific ASN. You can't get an ASN if you do not literally own the IP. ASNs aren't done for single addresses either, only IP address blocks.

 

Why would you even need an ASN?

[mobtrap]

Just now, jj9987 said:

Every IP block is assigned to a specific ASN. You can't get an ASN if you do not literally own the IP. ASNs aren't done for single addresses either, only IP address blocks.

 

Why would you even need an ASN?

For my hosting company, I want more trust to my customers and I also want to hide my providers.

[Falcon1986]

3 hours ago, mxnugget said:

I want more trust to my customers and I also want to hide my providers.

Hmmm... That sounds contradictory.