Informational BGP Communities: Origin tagging
The DE-CIX route servers tag all prefixes with certain BGP Communities to indicate their origin. You can use this information to determine where a certain prefix has been injected into the DE-CIX switching platform. This gives you the possibility to filter routes learned from the route servers based on geographical location.
Route origin tagging
Currently we tag the following information:
Switch: Indicates at which switch a prefix has been injected into the DE-CIX platform. We tag the corresponding edge switch of the port.
- Example: edge01.fra2
Metro: The metropolitan region corresponding to the switch.
- Example: Frankfurt
Country: The country corresponding to the above (in M.49 format).
- Example: Germany
Continent: The continent corresponding to the above (in M.49 format).
- Example: Europe
This means that every prefix you learn from the route servers has four (additional) BGP Communities attached which indicate location information.

The route server tags all prefixes with certain BGP Communities to indicate their origin
To avoid ambiguity about the semantics of a certain BGP Community, especially when being present multiple times, we strip all BGP Communities from the range that we use for route origin tagging on import. This is:
- 65101:*
- 65102:*
- 65103:*
- 65104:*
Overview
Edge switch | Switch Code | Switch BGP Com | Metro | Metro Code | Metro BGP Com | Country | M49 Region Code (Country) | Country BGP Com | Continent | M49 Region Code (Continent) | Continent BGP Com | |
edge01.fra2 | 1001 | 65101:1001 | FRA | 1000 | 65102:1000 | Germany | 276 | 65103:276 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge02.fra2 | 1089 | 65101:1089 | ||||||||||
edge01.fra6 | 1002 | 65101:1002 | ||||||||||
edge02.fra6 | 1090 | 65101:1090 | ||||||||||
edge01.fra9 | 1006 | 65101:1006 | ||||||||||
edge02.fra9 | 1102 | 65101:1002 | ||||||||||
edge01.fra10 | 1105 | 65101:1105 | ||||||||||
edge01.fra12 | 1085 | 65101:1085 | ||||||||||
edge02.fra12 | 1082 | 65101:1082 | ||||||||||
edge01.nyc1 | 2038 | 65101:2038 | NYC | 2000 | 65102:2000 | US | 840 | 65103:840 | Americas | 019 | 65104:19 | |
edge01.nyc8 | 2053 | 65101:2053 | ||||||||||
edge02.nyc3 | 2086 | 65101:2086 | ||||||||||
edge02.nyc5 | 2087 | 65101:2087 | ||||||||||
edge02.nyc6 | 2083 | 65101:2083 | ||||||||||
edge01.muc1 | 3068 | 65101:3068 | MUC | 3000 | 65102:3000 | Germany | 276 | 65103:276 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge01.muc2 | 3072 | 65101:3072 | ||||||||||
edge02.ham1 | 4081 | 65101:4081 | HAM | 4000 | 65102:4000 | Germany | 276 | 65103:276 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
sw001.dxb1 | 5050 | 65101:5050 | DXB | 5000 | 65102:5000 | UAE | 784 | 65103:784 | Asia | 142 | 65104:142 | |
edge01.dxb1 | 5079 | 65101:5079 | ||||||||||
edge01.dxb2 | 5080 | 65101:5080 | ||||||||||
edge01.mrs1 | 6054 | 65101:6054 | MRS | 6000 | 65102:6000 | France | 250 | 65103:250 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge01.pmo1 | 7052 | 65101:7052 | PMO | 7000 | 65102:7000 | Italy | 380 | 65103:380 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge01.ist1 | 8056 | 65101:8056 | IST | 8000 | 65102:8000 | Turkey | 792 | 65103:792 | Asia | 142 | 65104:142 | |
edge01.dus1 | 9065 | 65101:9065 | DUS | 9000 | 65102:9000 | Germany | 276 | 65103:276 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge01.dfw1 | 10073 | 65101:10073 | DFW | 10000 | 65102:10000 | US | 840 | 65103:840 | Americas | 019 | 65104:19 | |
edge01.mad3 | 11084 | 65101:11084 | MAD | 11000 | 65102:11000 | Spain | 724 | 65103:724 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge02.mad1 | 11077 | 65101:11077 | ||||||||||
edge01.lis | 12088 | 65101:12088 | LIS | 12000 | 65102:12000 | Portugal | 620 | 65103:620 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge01.ath1 | 15101 | 65101:15101 | ATH | 15000 | 65102:15000 | Greece | 300 | 65103:300 | Europe | 150 | 65104:150 | |
edge01.ord1 | 22110 | 65101:22110 | ORD | 22000 | 65102:22000 | USA | 840 | 65103:840 | Americas | 019 | 65104:19 | |
edge02.ord | 22111 | 65101:22111 | ||||||||||
Unknown | 65535 | 65101:65535 | 65535 | 65102:65535 | 65535 | 65104:65535 | 65535 | 65104:65535 |
Please note: If the exact location of a customer cannot be determined from the DE-CIX database, or in certain special cases, we tag the routes with 6510{1-4}:0, meaning "unknown".
Examples
Example 1
A prefix has the following BGP Communities attached to it:
- 65101:3068
- 65102:3000
- 65103:276
- 65104:150
From these BGP Communities you can deduce that this particular prefix has been injected at edge01.muc1 (65101:3068) in metro region Munich (65102:3000) which is in Germany (65103:276), Europe (65104:150).
Example 2
A prefix has the following BGP Communities attached to it:
- 65101:0
- 65102:2000
- 65103:840
- 65104:019
From these BGP Communities you can deduce that this particular prefix has been injected at a unknown location (65101:0) in metro region New York (65102:2000) which is in the USA (65103:840), Americas (65104:019).
In this case, the customer is located at a site in NYC for which the current corresponding edge switch cannot be determined (see note above).
Example 3
A prefix has the following BGP Communities attached to it:
- 65101:8056
- 65102:8000
- 65103:792
- 65104:142
From these BGP Communities you can deduce that this particular prefix has been injected at edge01.ist1 (65101:8056) in metro region Istanbul (65102:8000) which is in Turkey (65103:792), Asia (65104:142).