From 74a58d8c37aa9edb94e12de075edec01760c6660 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: sneak Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 02:10:29 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Add the Rationale section to README (closes #121) REPO_POLICIES.md requires a Rationale section saying why the program exists. RIS Live sends only the changes to the routing table, so it cannot answer which AS an address is routed to now; routewatch keeps the table the changes add up to and answers from it. Model: opus-5-5 --- README.md | 10 ++++++++++ 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index a13d38a..5e24375 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -5,6 +5,16 @@ table in real time: it streams BGP UPDATE messages from the RIPE RIS Live service, maintains a live routing table in SQLite, and provides HTTP APIs for querying routing information. +## Rationale + +RIPE RIS Live streams the BGP updates that RIPE's route collectors receive, as +they happen, from the moment a client connects. It reports changes, not the +routing table they add up to, so it cannot say which AS an IP address is routed +to now or which routes a prefix has. RouteWatch keeps that table: it applies the +feed's updates to live routing tables in its own SQLite database and answers +from them, so an IP-to-AS lookup or a prefix page shows the routes as the feed +last reported them. + ## Features - Real-time streaming of BGP updates from RIPE RIS Live