Autonomous system
AS4538 ERX-CERNET-BKB China Education and Research Network Center
Education RIPE Educational/Research
Summary
CERNET (China Education and Research Network) Backbone
education research legacy
ERX-CERNET-BKB — the backbone AS of the China Education and Research Network Center, operator of CERNET, China's national academic and research network.
What it's used for
- Carrying traffic for Chinese universities, colleges, and research institutes: CERNET connects campuses nationwide and provides their route to the wider internet.
- One of the largest ASNs in the world by address count, announcing roughly 16 million IPv4 addresses on behalf of the institutions it serves.
Notable
- This is the CERNET backbone, run by the CERNET Center under China's Ministry of Education. It is a national research and education network (NREN), not a commercial carrier and not an eyeball ISP — though its campus user population is enormous.
- Distinct from the CERNET2/CNGI next-generation IPv6 network, which is operated as a separate ASN. Don't conflate the two, or CERNET with the commercial Chinese carriers.
Interesting
- Scale like this behind a research-and-education network is unusual: most NRENs are a rounding error next to national carriers, but China's higher-education system gives CERNET carrier-sized address holdings.
This description is AI-generated, best-effort context — not authoritative, and provided without any guarantee of accuracy. Source, and how to suggest an edit.
Interconnection
Peering at a glance
Internet exchanges
Recorded at 1 exchange in 1 country, largest first.
| Exchange | Location | Their address |
|---|---|---|
| Hong Kong Internet Exchange | Hong Kong, China | 123.255.91.118 |
Transit providers
22 upstream, 21 downstream and 54 adjacent networks observed; most-used upstreams first.
Exchange presence is recorded rather than inferred: the directory collected by Packet Clearing House (https://www.pch.net/ixp/data) on 2026-10-11, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. Transit is inferred from observed BGP paths, never declared by either party.
Address space
Summary
IPv4 3,283 prefixes · 16.45M addresses IPv6 6 prefixes
| Country | Name | Prefixes |
|---|---|---|
| CN | China | 3,289 |
Registry
Allocation record
- Registry
- RIPE
- Handle
AS4538- Registry name
- ERX-CERNET-BKB
- Abuse contact
- abuse@cernet.edu.cn
- Registered
- 2008-09-04
- Last changed
- 2025-10-31
- Allocation
- allocated
Declared
PeeringDB profile
- Name
- CERNET-CN
- Also known as
- CERNET
- Network type
- Educational/Research
- Scope
- Not Disclosed
- Traffic ratio
- Not Disclosed
- Peering policy
- Open
- Website
- http://www.edu.cn
PeeringDB records are maintained by the network operator and are not independently verified. Treat them as a statement of intent rather than of fact. For the observed and recorded view, see peering, which lists the exchanges Packet Clearing House has a port on file for.
Routing security
RPKI and IRR
- RPKI
- 28% valid · 1,459 valid, 3,709 with no ROA 2 RPKI-invalid
- ROAs
- 6,537 authorising AS4538
- ASPA
- no ASPA record
- IRR
- 99.9% registered · 5,165 of 5,170 announcements 2 other origin
- Route objects
- 10,712 naming AS4538
Reputation
Classification and threat
Education University, school or national research and education network.
Spamhaus DROP
Not on ASN-DROP The network as a whole is not listed.
No DROP prefixes None of its announced space is on the DROP prefix list.
Spamhaus DROP ("Don't Route Or Peer") lists space and networks run by, or hijacked for, spam and cybercrime operations: 431 networks and 1,768 prefixes, as published 2026-10-12. A short, high-confidence list, so a match is worth taking seriously, and absence from it says little on its own.
FBI IC3
No IC3 indicators Nothing from the FBI IC3 feed.
IC3 threat data is alpha. Absence of an indicator is not evidence of good behaviour, only of absence from this one feed.
Elsewhere