Stages¶

A stage is a processing step in a bgpipe pipeline. Each stage performs a specific task: connecting to a BGP speaker, filtering messages, writing to a file, and so on. Stages are composed left-to-right on the command line, separated by --.

bgpipe [OPTIONS] [--] STAGE1 [OPTIONS] [ARGS] [--] STAGE2 [OPTIONS] [ARGS] ...

Available Stages¶

Connection¶

Stage	Description
connect	Connect to a BGP endpoint over TCP
listen	Accept an incoming BGP connection over TCP
speaker	Run a simple BGP speaker

Input / Output¶

Stage	Description
stdin	Read messages from standard input
stdout	Write messages to standard output
read	Read messages from a file or URL
write	Write messages to a file

Filtering¶

Stage	Description
grep	Keep messages matching a filter; drop the rest
drop	Drop messages matching a filter; keep the rest
tag	Add or remove message tags
limit	Enforce prefix length and count limits
head	Stop the pipeline after N messages

Modification¶

Stage	Description
update	Modify UPDATE message attributes

External Processing¶

Stage	Description
exec	Pipe messages through an external process
pipe	Exchange messages through a named pipe (FIFO)
websocket	Exchange messages over WebSocket

Live Streaming¶

Stage	Description
ris-live	Stream BGP updates from RIPE RIS Live
rv-live	Stream BGP updates from RouteViews via Kafka

Security¶

Stage	Description
rpki	Validate UPDATE messages using RPKI

Common Options¶

Every stage accepts the following options:

Option	Description
`-L`, `--left`	Operate in the L (left) direction
`-R`, `--right`	Operate in the R (right) direction
`-A`, `--args`	Consume all remaining CLI arguments until `--`
`-W`, `--wait` events	Wait for given event(s) before starting
`-S`, `--stop` events	Stop the stage after given event(s)
`--rate-limit` N	Delay messages to stay under N messages/sec
`--rate-sample` N	Randomly sample messages when over N messages/sec

In --wait and --stop, multiple events can be comma-separated. If you refer a stage name (e.g., listen), the event is expanded by appending /READY (e.g., listen/READY), which is emitted when the stage is ready to process messages (e.g., after accepting a new connection). You can also refer to custom events emitted by stages (e.g., grep/match).

Stages that support input or output filtering:

Option	Description
`-I`, `--if` filters	Input filter: skip capturing messages that don't match all the filters
`-O`, `--of` filters	Output filter: drop produced messages that don't match all the filters

Direction¶

By default, stages operate in the right (-R) direction, processing messages flowing left-to-right. The last stage that connects to a BGP endpoint defaults to the left (-L) direction instead. Use -LR for bidirectional processing.