Internet Exchange infrastructure · BIRD 2
Birdnest replaces a host-local Ruby generation chain with a central Rust control plane, deterministic BIRD 2 rendering, pull-based route-server agents, native IRR expansion, RPKI/RTR and a public Looking Glass.
The operator problem
As an exchange grows, peer data, IRR policy, RPKI state, templates, generated sidecars, deployment and public visibility must agree. A render script alone cannot explain desired state, host drift or partial rollout.
The engineering response
Birdnest makes MariaDB authoritative for control-plane state, uses pull agents on route-server hosts, validates generated artifacts with BIRD itself, and publishes route snapshots through a rebuildable Redis cache.
Capabilities
Birdnest spans data integration, configuration compilers, distributed agents, routing security, public APIs and operator UX. The difficult parts are kept explicit instead of being hidden inside deployment glue.
Reads peer and route-server data without writing upstream, then binds imported identities to controlled local intent.
Tera-based rendering produces main configuration and sidecars with stable ordering, preview and full artifact hashing.
Bearer-enrolled agents poll for work, validate locally, maintain snapshots and report bounded results to the controller.
An in-process IRRd protocol client resolves AS-SETs and emits lossless BIRD prefix patterns without shelling out.
A native relying-party pipeline retains last-good data and serves validated origin payloads directly to BIRD.
Agent-fed neighbor and route views power a public, rate-limited Looking Glass with per-bucket freshness.
System shape
The controller owns intent and orchestration, while each Linux host owns the final parse check and filesystem boundary. Public route visibility is separated from authoritative state.
What this proves
Reliable routing automation needs more than BGP vocabulary. It needs correct configuration semantics, safe distribution, observability, recovery and an interface that lets operators challenge the system.
More projects
Explore the public route view, DDoS mitigation control plane, and our broadcast transport product.
Routing systems that can be operated
We can help with BIRD architecture, policy data, route-server automation, migration from host-local scripts, validation gates, RPKI/RTR and operator tooling.
