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In September 2019 we upgraded our network to new hardware running a VyOS-based routing platform. Today we have released the first version of the tool we built as an open source project.

hphr (the Halophile Router) is a VyOS-based, SaltStack-automated, NetBox-configured router for small provider networks.

It implements:

• interface configuration via Netbox, so your IP addresses in production match your documentation (and interface descriptions are derived from your connections Netbox’s DCIM)
• internal and external BGP configuration via Salt’s pillar, which can be version-controlled by standard tools like git
• OSPF for the IGP for the core (we use it for loopbacks and area 0 linknets)
• IPv6 and IPv4 support
• automatic route filter generation using bgpq3 to build prefix-lists from IRR data
• rejection of RPKI-invalid announcements
• BCP38 source-address spoofing prevention via a two-line firewall
• NetFlow statistics generation
• control plane protections

…and much more! We also have our own plans for developments to hphr to further improve our network performance, reliability, and manageability.

We hope that this project inspires other network operators to implement best current practices, even those with very small budgets for hardware expenditure and software/license costs.