Parser Backends¶

PyBGPFlux supports multiple parser backends for different use cases.

Available Parsers¶

PyBGPKIT (Default)¶

Name: pybgpkit
Speed: Slow
Dependencies: None
Use Case: Zero-dependency installation, prototyping

BGPKIT Parser¶

Name: bgpkit
Speed: Fast (~10x faster than pybgpkit)
Dependencies: Install from cargo
Use Case: Large-scale processing

Installation:

cargo install bgpkit-parser --features cli

Usage:

from pybgpflux import BGPStreamConfig, BGPStream

config = BGPStreamConfig(
    ...,
    parser="bgpkit",
)
stream = BGPStream.from_config(config)

BGPDump¶

Name: bgpdump
Speed: Fast, comparable to BGPKIT
Dependencies: Classic MRT parser utility
Use Case: Legacy systems, compatibility

Installation:

apt-get install bgpdump

PyBGPStream¶

Name: pybgpstream
Speed: Fastest
Remote parsing: Yes (parse directly from URL, no local download)
Dependencies: libbgpstream and pip install pybgpstream
Use Case: Large-scale processing, low-disk/RAM environments

Installation: follow the CI steps

When remote_parse=True (the default), pybgpstream parses MRT archives directly from their remote URLs without saving them to disk or RAM first. This is useful for memory-constrained environments or when processing large RIB files.

from pybgpflux import BGPStreamConfig, BGPStream

config = BGPStreamConfig(
    ...,
    parser="pybgpstream",
    remote_parse=True,   # default — skip local download entirely
)
stream = BGPStream.from_config(config)

Using parsers on a single file¶

You can also use parsers independently:

from pybgpflux.bgpstreamconfig import FilterOptions
from pybgpflux.parsers import BGPdumpParser, BGPKITParser

filters = FilterOptions(peer_asn=2497)

bgpdump_parser = BGPdumpParser(
    collector="route-views.wide",
    is_rib=False,
    filepath="updates.20100901.0000.bz2",
    filters=filters,
)

bgpkit_parser = BGPKITParser(
    collector="route-views.wide",
    is_rib=False,
    filepath="updates.20100901.0000.bz2",
    filters=filters,
)

assert sum(1 for _ in bgpdump_parser) == sum(1 for _ in bgpkit_parser)