Rogers is not routing Cloudflare to the nearest data centre

[zzq1015]

I live near Toronto, and Cloudflare is an anycast system, it has an data centre there. However I couldn't get access to it. Instead I am routed to a server in Seattle. This only happens on IPv4. I made this error on purpose to show the server location.

Trace route IPv4:

Tracing route to www.cloudflare.com.cdn.cloudflare.net [198.41.214.163] over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1

  2    11 ms     9 ms    10 ms  69.63.255.113

  3    10 ms    11 ms     9 ms  64.71.240.9

  4    14 ms    14 ms    10 ms  64.71.240.5

  5    65 ms    65 ms    62 ms  gw02.qcmtl.phub.net.cable.rogers.com [24.153.4.65]

  6    67 ms    65 ms    66 ms  van58-10-227-254.dynamic.rogerstelecom.net [209.148.227.254]

  7    67 ms    78 ms    78 ms  108.162.243.249

  8    66 ms    65 ms    68 ms  198.41.214.163

Trace complete.

Trace route IPv6 (6rd provided by Rogers):

Tracing route to www.cloudflare.com.cdn.cloudflare.net [2400:cb00:2048:1::c629:d7a3] over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  hidden

  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.

  3    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  2607:f798:10:1041:0:241:5615:6241

  4    15 ms    16 ms    18 ms  2607:f798:10:1b8:0:241:5615:6233

  5    13 ms    12 ms    12 ms  2607:f798:10:22b::2

  6    14 ms    12 ms    12 ms  torix.tge2-3.ar1.tor1.ca.nlayer.net [2001:504:1a::34:53]

  7    13 ms    11 ms    14 ms  as13335.xe-2-0-1.cr1.tor1.ca.nlayer.net [2001:590::451f:8f0e]

  8    13 ms    12 ms    12 ms  2400:cb00:2048:1::c629:d7a3

Trace complete.

***edited labels***

[nkgers]

I think you'll have to ask CloudFlare for that issue.

[Gdkitty]

I am thinking this is more a DNS issue.. that what cloudflare has listed for what that address should be.

While rogers is in charge of ROUTING.. that is just for the routing, to the final IP address.

IF that domain is resolving to the US IP address.. then that is where it will route to.

I am NOT using the rogers DNS servers.. and get the same IP resolution, so i think that most DNS tables have that entry for that domain.

[zzq1015]

The error massage (I made this error on purpose) clearly shows I am routed to Seattle

http://i.imgur.com/5SSpc7S.png

And it's not an DNS issue, because I use multiple DNS and get the same results.

It looks like an BGP issue.

"CloudFlare then uses a technology called Anycast to route your visitors to the nearest data center. "

https://www.cloudflare.com/features-cdn

Anycast is a network addressing and routing methodology in which datagrams from a single sender are routed to the topologically nearest node in a group of potential receivers, though it may be sent to several nodes, all identified by the same destination address.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anycast

So it doesn't matter what location the IP belongs to. It should be routed to the nearest data centre.

[Gdkitty]

I have to admit wasnt completely sure on what anycasting was.. so did some more research on it.

In a regular scenario.. it would make a difference on where that IP was, as to the routing it would take.

But in an ANYCAST scenario.. you are right, the response that IP should be giving back is from the closest (or first to respond) server.

Only think i could think in this case.. is that the toronto server is not communicating with rogers correctly... or they dont have proper routing to it.

EDIT:
THis may not be a ROGERS only issue.

I just did it from my works BUSINESS Bell direct Fibre into the building.
And my routing goes down into chicago, etc.

Tracing route to www.cloudflare.com.cdn.cloudflare.net [198.41.215.163]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms    <1 ms     1 ms  10.10.3.22
  2    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.10.3.249
  3     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  10.49.49.37
  4    15 ms    13 ms    17 ms  tcore4-toronto47_1-0-0-2.net.bell.ca [64.230.49.192]
  5    13 ms    13 ms    12 ms  newcore2-chicagocp_so3-0-0-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.186.118]
  6    18 ms    47 ms    30 ms  bx5-chicagodt_xe6-0-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.186.86]
  7    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  xe-1-2-0.edge01.ord02.as13335.net [206.223.119.180]
  8    12 ms    14 ms    14 ms  198.41.215.163

[techguy001]

I think there may be another factor in this.   The peering partners that our local carriers use to get to the US would also make a difference as to which site would be seen as "closer" .    Those that Cloudfare uses might affect this.   In addition if Cloudfare uses a CDN like Akamai, Limelight, etc this could also change things.  

[zzq1015]

OK @gdkitty, can you try copying to address bar or click: https://www.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/trace

For example, my test is like this: (I disabled IPv6)

fl=28f9
h=www.cloudflare.com
ip=99.225.*.* //This is your IP address. Remember to hide it.
ts=1410993707.408
visit_scheme=https
uag=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/37.0.2062.120 Safari/537.36

// Win8.1 64-bit, Chrome 37
colo=SEA //This is the server location (SEA=Seattle)
spdy=3.1
0

[Gdkitty]

From my rogers account, show the same.  I will test from my BELL account tomorrow at work.

[Gdkitty]

From my bell account.

Doesnt look like its toronto either?

ORD is chicago?  Still closer than seatle..
But that would go along with my trace from BELL, that mine was going through a chicago node.

fl=14f15
h=www.cloudflare.com
ip=206.47.x.x
ts=1411045063.952
visit_scheme=https
uag=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; Trident/7.0; MDDCJS; rv:11.0) like Gecko
colo=ORD
spdy=off
0

[zzq1015]

Yes. ORD is Chicago. The server location is often in airport code

SEA=Seattle

YYZ=Toronto

ORD=Chicago

LGA=New York

For more, you can google "<airport code> + airport"

And, check this out:

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq#locations