AS215223: Personal ASN & IPv6 Exploration

Introduction

AS215223 is a hobbyist, IPv6‑first network project exploring how personal Autonomous System Numbers can run real BGP on a budget. It documents practical experiments with routing policy, multihoming, tunneling, and peering—aimed at learning-by-doing and sharing insights with the community.

Background

Started on March 26, 2024, this project began as a curiosity: public IPv4 is expensive and scarce, while IPv6 is abundant and encouraged by local homelab communities. Discovering that individuals in the RIPE region can request their own ASN, I spun up AS215223 to experiment with IPv6 routing in a realistic but low-cost lab setting.

Challenges

1. Running BGP as an individual with limited budget and hardware.
2. Achieving meaningful multihoming and reachability using small providers.
3. Managing routing policy, filtering, and security without enterprise tooling.
4. Keeping everything firmly in “lab” mode while staying visible and reachable.

Solutions

Pragmatic Multihoming on a Budget

Announcing IPv6 prefixes through several friendly networks that support hobbyist BGP:

• AS20473 — The Constant Company, LLC
• AS209022 — Tschajera Limited
• AS41051 — Freetransit Project (Openfactory GmbH)
• AS34927 — iFog GmbH

IPv6-First, Learn-by-Doing

Primary focus is IPv6 routing: advertising and steering traffic, validating policies, and testing failover. All work remains a lab—safe to break, easy to rebuild.

Routing Hygiene and Visibility

Leaning on community tools to validate and observe:

• PeeringDB profile for discoverability
• BGP.Tools and HE.net for route visibility and troubleshooting
• Community discussions via IPv6 Indonesia and Telegram for peer feedback

Key Details

• Status: Lab (and will remain a lab)
• IPv6 prefixes in rotation: 2a0f:85c1:3a6::/48, 2a14:7581:4820::/44, 2a01:e281:a300::/40
• Scope: BGP announcements, multihoming, routing policy experiments, basic tunneling
• Infrastructure: Low-cost VPS/small providers capable of BGP sessions

Impact

• Hands-on knowledge shared via posts and code snippets
• Practical guidance for homelabbers considering personal ASNs
• Active peering experiments to broaden IPv6 reachability

Conclusion

AS215223 is a learning playground that demonstrates how individuals can explore modern internet routing with IPv6 and an ASN—without enterprise budgets. By staying transparent and community-oriented, the project helps demystify BGP, multihoming, and routing hygiene for fellow learners.