Registration flow

From account creation to active peering — what happens at each stage.

Public ASN

RIR-registered ASN — goes through RDAP ownership validation before admin review.

Private ASN

Portal-assigned (64512–65534) — no RDAP validation; goes straight to admin review.

  1. 1

    Create your account

    Instant

    Fill in your name, organisation, email address, and choose your ASN type. For a public ASN, enter your ASN number — you will verify ownership in a later step. For a private ASN, select one from the pool; it is assigned immediately.

    After submitting, check your inbox for the verification email. You will not be able to sign in until your email is verified.

    Stuck here? If no verification email arrives within a few minutes, check your spam folder. The sender address is the exchange's configured EMAIL_FROM_ADDRESS.
  2. 2

    Verify your email and set a password

    Link expires in 48 hours

    Click the verification link in the email. You will be taken to a form to set your password. Once set, you are signed in automatically.

    After this step, public ASNs proceed to ownership validation (step 3). Private ASNs skip straight to admin review (step 4).

    Stuck here? If the link has expired, re-register with the same email address — the portal will send a fresh link and will not create a duplicate account.
  3. 3

    Validate ASN ownership

    Public ASNs only
    Link expires in 72 hours

    The portal performs an RDAP lookup to find your ASN's registration record at your RIR (ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC, or AFRINIC). You choose an email contact from the record; a one-time confirmation link is sent to that address.

    The recipient does not need a portal account — they just click the link. This matters if the person registering and the RIR contact are different people. Once clicked, the registration moves to admin review.

    Stuck here? See the full troubleshooting guide for RDAP errors, missing contacts, and expired links.

    ASN validation help →
  4. 4

    Admin review

    Typically 1–2 business days

    An exchange operator reviews your registration and either approves or rejects it. You will receive an email in either case. If rejected, the reason is shown on the rejection email and on your dashboard.

    Your dashboard shows Pending review while you wait. There is nothing else required from you at this stage.

    Stuck here? If you have been waiting more than a few business days with no response, contact the exchange operator directly — include your ASN and the email address you registered with.
  5. 5

    Connect to a location

    You initiate this step

    Once approved, go to your Locations page and click Connect next to an available exchange location. You will be asked for your tunnel type (GRETAP or VxLAN) and your public IP address — the IP your router uses to establish the tunnel to the exchange.

    After submitting, one of two things happens depending on the location's configuration:

    Auto-provisioning

    If the location has a peering LAN configured, your peering IPs are assigned automatically within seconds and the connection moves straight to Provisioned.

    Manual provisioning

    If no peering LAN is configured, your request goes to the admin approval queue. An admin assigns your peering IPs and provisions you via the IX node API.

  6. 6

    Configure your router

    You do this step

    Once provisioned, your Locations page shows a Connection Instructions panel with ready-to-paste tunnel and BGP configs for VyOS, Linux + FRR, and Linux + BIRD2, pre-filled with your assigned peering IPs and the route server addresses.

    You need to do two things on your router:

    1. Create a GRE or VxLAN tunnel to the exchange node's public IP and assign your peering LAN IPs to it.
    2. Configure BGP sessions to RS1 and RS2 using your peering LAN IPs as the session source and neighbor addresses.
    Full connection instructions → · Make the tunnel survive reboots →
  7. ✓

    BGP sessions established — you're peering

    Seconds after tunnel comes up

    Once the tunnel is up and BGP is configured, sessions to RS1 and RS2 should reach Established within seconds. The route server immediately distributes your announced prefixes to other participants and delivers their routes to you.

    Verify on your Sessions page — both RS1 and RS2 should show Established. Check your Routes page to confirm your prefixes are held by the route server.

    Not getting there? The Troubleshooting page covers the most common problems: Active session, PfxRcd 0, enforce-first-as, and route filter rejections.
Register → Connection instructions → How the exchange works → Troubleshooting → ← Help center