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Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the internet

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the internet

#4

Post by phoe-krk »

andp97 wrote: post #2

No one. Cloudflare that write a report of some else network outage! AWESOW COMPANY!!!

Do you really think that Facebook is going to write one right now?

It's good that we have some coverage from companies that have some stake in the game because they are also affected by the outage, even if only partially.

Re: Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the internet

#5

Post by Wolfspirit »

phoe-krk wrote: post #4
andp97 wrote: post #2

No one. Cloudflare that write a report of some else network outage! AWESOW COMPANY!!!

Do you really think that Facebook is going to write one right now? It's good that we have some coverage from companies that have some stake in the game because they are also affected by the outage, even if only partially.

Even if they wanted to write one they have no way to host it :D

Re: Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the internet

#6

Post by throwdecro »

This is a great write-up, but one thing I don't understand is why the effect of withdrawing the BGP prefixes was instantaneous (if I understand that correctly), but it's taking hours (so far) to re-announce the prefixes. Why would it take so long to flip the switch back the other way?

Re: Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the internet

#7

Post by dec0dedab0de »

throwdecro wrote: post #6

This is a great write-up, but one thing I don't understand is why the effect of withdrawing the BGP prefixes was instantaneous (if I understand that correctly), but it's taking hours (so far) to re-announce the prefixes. Why would it take so long to flip the switch back the other way?

I haven't been following closely, but I think once they moved the prefixes they could no longer access the routers. Coupled with barebones staff at the data center due to the pandemic, and all internal communication being disrupted. Though I really expected it to be up within an hour or two.

Re: Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the internet

#8

Post by Wolfspirit »

throwdecro wrote: post #6

This is a great write-up, but one thing I don't understand is why the effect of withdrawing the BGP prefixes was instantaneous (if I understand that correctly), but it's taking hours (so far) to re-announce the prefixes. Why would it take so long to flip the switch back the other way?

I'm not sure if that is true (and I hope it is not cause that would be fatal) but I read somewhere that with facebook being down also means all internal infrastructure of facebook isn't available at the moment (chats, communication) including remote control tools for the BGP Routers. Therefor they require people to get physical access to the router while many people are working from home cause of the pandemic.

Re: Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the internet

#9

Post by kube-system »

throwdecro wrote: post #6

This is a great write-up, but one thing I don't understand is why the effect of withdrawing the BGP prefixes was instantaneous (if I understand that correctly), but it's taking hours (so far) to re-announce the prefixes. Why would it take so long to flip the switch back the other way?

Given my experience with DNS issues, I am guessing that they are running into dependencies along the way that assume/require DNS be available to function.
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