MyASN Getting Started Guide

Logging On

1. Goto the MyASN start page
2. Enter your user name and Autonomous System Number (ASN) separated by an 'at-sign', e.g. harold@1066, and then your password in the field below
3. Click 'OK'
4. You should now see the MyASN main page

You can ask for more MyASN user accounts by filling in the MyASN account creation form.

Creating Alarms

Follow these steps:

• On the MyASN main page, click 'Create New Alarm'
• Begin by selecting the 'Alarm Type':
• Origin: An alarm event occurs when a specified prefix appears to originate from a conflicting AS.
• Customer: An alarm event occurs when a customer appears to be given transit from a provider other than yourself or a specified provider.
• Transit: An alarm event occurs when your AS appears to receive transit from an unspecified provider.
• Advanced: Allows the user to freely specify the regular expression to be matched with AS paths.
• There are three boxes where you can type in AS numbers:
  • My AS Number(s): Your ASN (can be anyones)
  • Their AS Number(s): ASNs of customers or transit providers
  • Other upstreams: Providers of multihoming customers
  Start by typing in a few AS Numbers in fields that are not shaded grey, and then click in the box where you would enter the prefix (ASNs are separated with a comma or space). You should now see the regular expression in the grey box called 'Expected ASpath'.
• Next, type in the prefix that you would like to monitor. The box 'Prefix exceptions' allows you to specify more specific routes that you wish to exclude from an aggregate.
• The following settings can be manipulated to change when and how an alarm message should be triggered by alarm events:
  • Minimum Event Duration (MinED): The amount of time an event must be active (not withdrawn) before generating an alarm notification - default: 1 min
  • Minimum Event Count (MinEC): The amount of times an event can occur before generating an alarm notification - default: 1 event
    In this context, it is important to understand that, unlike the previous alarm detection method, the MinEC ignores withdrawals.
  • Alarm Detection Window (ADW): The time interval, starting from the first one, that similar consecutive events from the same peer are tracked by MyASN. Once an alarm is triggered, the timer resets itself - default: 1 hour


In other words, assuming that the first event was caused by a misconfiguration and thereafter immediately withdrawn, the default values imply that MyASN will notify the user when the same happens again up to one hour after the first incident. Please note that these values are configurable.

• Accept the default alarm group for now. More alarm groups can be added later.
• Now click 'Create' and you're done.

Managing Alarms

On this page, it is possible to make adjustments to newly created alarms. Make sure that you click 'update' to make your changes effective.

There are six links on the right-hand side that might need explaining:

1. Disable: This link should be obvious. MyASN will not monitor this alarm until it is enabled again.
2. Edit: The link will take you to the 'Create New Alarm' page, where you can modify the alarm entry.
3. Delete: Clicking on 'Delete' will delete the alarm entry. Beware that you are not asked again to confirm your choice.
4. Reset: Clicking on 'Reset' will delete all pending alarm events and restart the alarm detection process
5. Show pending events: The link 'Show Pending Events" will display all alarm events that have been detected by MyASN, but not yet triggered an alarm notification. This link can be used to estimate the suitable values for MinED, MinEC, and ADW.
6. Retromatch: A future functionality that will allow the user to run MyASN alarms over old RIS data. The feature will be enabled later on, once system performance has been assessed.

Managing Alarm Groups

Alarm groups allow you to assort your configured alarms into logical categories. Another great feature is the possibility to send alarm notifications to different destinations depending on which alarm group it belongs.

Steps to add a new alarm group from left to right (second line from the bottom):

1. Enter a name for the alarm group
2. Type in the destination email address for alarm notifications
3. Enter a number from 0 to 100 in 'Lines per Alarm'. A number above 0 will list that number of notification entries per alarm, while 0 produces a short summary of the alarm notifications. Try it out.
4. The syslog IP, severity and facility boxes are self-explanatory.

Remember to click on the 'Update/Create/Submit' buttons to make your modifications effective.

Viewing Alarms

Follow these steps:

1. From the main page, click on 'View Alarms'. This page lists all your configured alarms and, most importantly, the number of alarm events seen by MyASN that have triggered notifications.
2. By clicking on 'View', you can look more closely at the time and place of 'unexpected' routing events.
3. When you are done and have taken action, you can go back to the 'View Alarms' page, and there click on 'delete log' to purge the MyASN database of old entries.

Importing Origin Alarms from Alpha

This tool imports Origin alarms from the earlier MyASN prototype into the current application.

• Firstly, choose the alarm group into which you want to import the Origin alarms.
• Then enter your account details from the MyASN Prototype in any order:
• MyASN Prototype configuration AS Number
• MyASN Prototype configuration user name
• MyASN Prototype configuration user password
• Click 'Import'
• You should now be able to see you imported alarms on the 'Manage Alarms' page

Importing/Exporting MyASN Configuration as XML

1. Copy and paste your XML configuration into the text area or just edit the template. Another idea would be to use ascii from an XML export as a template.
2. Click the 'Import' button at the bottom. Remember to use a unique alarm group name.

1. Select the alarm group you want to export into XML.
2. Click on 'Export'.
3. You will now be presented with a long line of ascii that represents your configuration for the selected alarm group.
4. Manipulate the exported text in your favourite editor.

Logging Out

Please see the RIS FAQ for more information.