Reference
BGP Simulator File Formats
Use this page as the source of truth for graph relationship files, announcements CSV uploads, and ROV ASN files used in custom BGP simulations. Each section shows what the simulator expects and what common mistakes look like.
Input Types At A Glance
Graph File
The graph file tells the simulator how ASNs are connected. It supports both whitespace-delimited and pipe-delimited CAIDA-style relationship formats.
1 2 -1 3 4 0
1|2|-1|bgp 3|4|0|bgp
Only the first three fields matter for the simulator: left ASN, right ASN, and relationship value.
Announcements CSV
The announcements CSV seeds routes into the topology. Each row identifies the ASN that originates the route, the prefix, and whether the route should be treated as invalid for ROV purposes.
seed_asn,prefix,rov_invalid 25,10.0.0.0/24,True 27,10.0.0.0/24,False
The simulator also accepts asn,prefix,rov_invalid if your data export uses asn instead of seed_asn.
ROV ASN File
The ROV file is plain text with one ASN per line. These ASNs reject invalid announcements instead of storing them as route candidates.
174 43 68 27
Relationship Values
When the simulator later labels a hop as customer, provider, or peer, that is the relationship as seen by the receiving ASN on that hop.
Common Mistakes
- Using headers other than seed_asn or asn for announcements.
- Adding extra commas inside the prefix column.
- Uploading a graph file that uses relationship values other than -1 and 0.
- Putting text like AS174 in the ROV file instead of just 174.