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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Network mapping</span></span>

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<p><b>Network mapping</b> is the study of the physical connectivity of networks e.g. the <a href="Internet" title="Internet">Internet</a>. Network mapping discovers the devices on the network and their connectivity. It is not to be confused with network discovery or <a href="Network_enumeration" title="Network enumeration">network enumeration</a> which discovers devices on the network and their characteristics such as <a href="Operating_system" title="Operating system">operating system</a>, open <a href="Computer_port_(software)" class="mw-redirect" title="Computer port (software)">ports</a>, listening <a href="Network_service" title="Network service">network services</a>, etc. The field of automated network mapping has taken on greater importance as networks become more dynamic and complex in nature.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Large-scale_mapping_project">Large-scale mapping project</h2></div>

<p>Images of some of the first attempts at a large scale map of the internet were produced by the <a href="Internet_Mapping_Project" title="Internet Mapping Project">Internet Mapping Project</a> and appeared in <i><a href="Wired_(magazine)" title="Wired (magazine)">Wired</a></i> magazine. The maps produced by this project were based on the <a href="Network_Layer" class="mw-redirect" title="Network Layer">layer 3</a> or <a href="Internet_Protocol" title="Internet Protocol">IP</a> level connectivity of the Internet (see <a href="OSI_model" title="OSI model">OSI model</a>), but there are different aspects of internet structure that have also been mapped.

</p><p>More recent efforts to map the internet have been improved by more sophisticated methods, allowing them to make faster and more sensible maps. An example of such an effort is the <a href="Opte_Project" title="Opte Project">OPTE project</a>, which is attempting to develop a system capable of mapping the internet in a single day.

</p><p>The "Map of the Internet Project" maps over 4 billion internet locations as cubes in 3D <a href="Cyberspace" title="Cyberspace">cyberspace</a>. Users can add <a href="Uniform_Resource_Locator" class="mw-redirect" title="Uniform Resource Locator">URLs</a> as cubes and re-arrange objects on the map.

</p><p>In early 2011 Canadian based ISP <a href="Peer_1" class="mw-redirect" title="Peer 1">PEER 1 Hosting</a> created their own Map of the Internet that depicts a graph of 19,869 <a href="Autonomous_system_(Internet)" title="Autonomous system (Internet)">autonomous system</a> nodes connected by 44,344 connections. The sizing and layout of the autonomous systems was calculated based on their <a href="Eigenvector" class="mw-redirect" title="Eigenvector">eigenvector</a> centrality, which is a measure of how central to the network each autonomous system is.

</p><p><a href="Graph_theory" title="Graph theory">Graph theory</a> can be used to better understand maps of the internet and to help choose between the many ways to <a href="Information_visualization" class="mw-redirect" title="Information visualization">visualize</a> internet maps. Some projects have attempted to incorporate geographical data into their internet maps (for example, to draw locations of <a href="Router_(computing)" title="Router (computing)">routers</a> and <a href="Node_(networking)" title="Node (networking)">nodes</a> on a map of the world), but others are only concerned with representing the more abstract structures of the internet, such as the allocation, structure, and purpose of <a href="IPv4" title="IPv4">IP space</a>.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Enterprise_network_mapping">Enterprise network mapping</h2></div>

<p>Many organizations create network maps of their network system. These maps can be made manually using simple tools such as <a href="Microsoft_Visio" title="Microsoft Visio">Microsoft Visio</a>, or the mapping process can be simplified by using tools that <a href="Network_documentation" title="Network documentation">integrate auto network discovery with Network mapping</a>, one such example being the Fabric platform. Many of the vendors from the <a class="mw-selflink-fragment" href="#Notable_network_mappers">Notable network mappers</a> list enable you to customize the maps and include your own labels, add un-discoverable items and background images. Sophisticated mapping is used to help visualize the network and understand relationships between end devices and the transport layers that provide service. Mostly, network scanners detect the network with all its components and deliver a list which is used for creating charts and maps using network mapping software.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Items such as bottlenecks and <a href="Root_cause_analysis" title="Root cause analysis">root cause analysis</a> can be easier to spot using these tools.

</p><p>There are three main techniques used for network mapping: <a href="Simple_Network_Management_Protocol" title="Simple Network Management Protocol">SNMP</a> based approaches, active probing and <a href="Route_analytics" class="mw-redirect" title="Route analytics">route analytics</a>.

</p><p>The SNMP based approach retrieves data from Router and Switch MIBs in order to build the network map. The active probing approach relies on a series of traceroute-like probe packets in order to build the network map. The route analytics approach relies on information from the <a href="Routing_protocol" title="Routing protocol">routing protocols</a> to build the network map. Each of the three approaches have advantages and disadvantages in the methods that they use.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Internet_mapping_techniques">Internet mapping techniques</h2></div>

<p>There are two prominent techniques used today to create Internet maps. The first works on the data plane of the <a href="Internet" title="Internet">Internet</a> and is called active probing. It is used to infer <a href="Internet_topology" class="mw-redirect" title="Internet topology">Internet topology</a> based on <a href="Router_(computing)" title="Router (computing)">router</a> adjacencies. The second works on the control plane and infers <a href="Autonomous_system_(Internet)" title="Autonomous system (Internet)">autonomous system</a> connectivity based on <a href="Border_Gateway_Protocol" title="Border Gateway Protocol">BGP</a> data. A BGP speaker sends 19-byte keep-alive messages every 60 seconds to maintain the connection.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Active_probing">Active probing</h3></div>

<p>This technique relies on <a href="Traceroute" title="Traceroute">traceroute</a>-like probing on the IP address space. These probes report back IP forwarding paths to the destination address. By combining these paths one can infer router level topology for a given <a href="Point_of_presence" title="Point of presence">POP</a>. Active probing is advantageous in that the paths returned by probes constitute the actual forwarding path that data takes through networks. It is also more likely to find <a href="Peering" title="Peering">peering</a> links between <a href="ISP" class="mw-redirect" title="ISP">ISPs</a>. However, active probing requires massive amounts of probes to map the entire Internet. It is more likely to infer false topologies due to load balancing routers and routers with multiple IP address aliases. Decreased global support for enhanced probing mechanisms such as source-route probing, <a href="Internet_Control_Message_Protocol" title="Internet Control Message Protocol">ICMP</a> Echo Broadcasting, and IP Address Resolution techniques leaves this type of probing in the realm of network diagnosis.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="AS_PATH_inference">AS PATH inference</h3></div>

<p>This technique relies on various <a href="Border_Gateway_Protocol" title="Border Gateway Protocol">BGP</a> collectors who collect routing updates and tables and provide this information publicly. Each BGP entry contains a Path Vector attribute called the AS Path. This path represents an <a href="Autonomous_system_(Internet)" title="Autonomous system (Internet)">autonomous system</a> forwarding path from a given origin for a given set of <a href="Prefixes" class="mw-redirect" title="Prefixes">prefixes</a>. These paths can be used to infer AS-level connectivity and in turn be used to build AS topology graphs. However, these paths do not necessarily reflect how data is actually forwarded and adjacencies between AS nodes only represent a policy relationship between them. A single AS link can in reality be several router links. It is also much harder to infer peerings between two AS nodes as these peering relationships are only propagated to an ISP's customer networks. Nevertheless, support for this type of mapping is increasing as more and more ISP's offer to peer with public route collectors such as Route-Views and <a href="R%C3%A9seaux_IP_Europ%C3%A9ens" class="mw-redirect" title="Réseaux IP Européens">RIPE</a>. New toolsets are emerging such as Cyclops and NetViews that take advantage of a new experimental BGP collector BGPMon. NetViews can not only build topology maps in seconds but visualize topology changes moments after occurring at the actual router. Hence, routing dynamics can be visualized in real time.

In comparison to what the tools using BGPMon does there is another tool netTransformer able to discover and generate BGP peering maps either through SNMP polling or by converting MRT dumps<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> to a <a href="Graphml" class="mw-redirect" title="Graphml">graphml</a> file format. netTransformer allows us also to perform network diffs between any two dumps and thus to reason how does the BGP peering has evolved through the years.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> WhatsUp Gold, an <a href="Information_technology" title="Information technology">IT</a> monitoring tool, tracks networks, servers, applications, storage devices, virtual devices and incorporates infrastructure management, application performance management.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

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<span typeof="mw:File"></span></div><div class="thumbcaption"><div style="float: right;"><span typeof="mw:File"></span></div>Internet BGP peering map (red - multi homed AS, green stubs)</div></div></div></div>

<ul><li><a href="Comparison_of_network_diagram_software" class="mw-redirect" title="Comparison of network diagram software">Comparison of network diagram software</a></li>

<li><a href="DIMES" title="DIMES">DIMES</a></li>

<li><a href="Network_topology" title="Network topology">Network topology</a></li>

<li><a href="Opte_Project" title="Opte Project">Opte Project</a></li>

<li><a href="Webometrics" title="Webometrics">Webometrics</a></li></ul>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Notes">Notes</h2></div>

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</style><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.paessler.com/network-mapping">"FREE network mapping software PRTG"</a>. <i>www.paessler.com</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2021-09-07</span></span>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFBlunkLabovitzKarir2011" class="citation web cs1">Blunk, Larry; Labovitz, Craig; Karir, Manish (October 2011). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6396">"RFC 6396 - Multi-Threaded Routing Toolkit (MRT) Routing Information Export Format"</a>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.slideshare.net/itransformersCrew/tracking-network-evolution-process-with-nettransformer-bulgarian-internet-bgp-peering-evolution-from-2001-till-now-network-evolution">"Tracking network evolution process with netTransformer & Bulgarian In…"</a>. 2 November 2014<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">30 August</span> 2016</span>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410487,00.asp">"Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold"</a>. <i>PC Magazine</i>. 31 July 2020.</cite></span>

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2></div>

<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.cse.unr.edu/~hkardes/pdfs/cheleby.pdf">Cheleby Internet Topology Mapping System</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.caida.org/">Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://netlab.cs.memphis.edu/netviews1.html">NetViews: Multi-level Realtime Internet Mapping</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://cyclops.cs.ucla.edu/">Cyclops: An AS level Observatory</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050523235412/http://www.netdimes.org/">DIMES Research Project</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060106055420/http://research.lumeta.com/ches/map/">Internet Mapping Research Project</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040824013519/http://www.opte.org/">The Opte Project</a></li></ul></div><div><div class="zim-footer">

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