From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Dec 6 20:45:12 2000 From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 6 20:45:10 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from calulu.shearer.org (unknown [139.130.30.173]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C2B1A37B400 for ; Wed, 6 Dec 2000 20:45:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from calulu.shearer.org ([192.168.1.1]) by calulu.shearer.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1) id 143stS-0003JQ-00; Thu, 07 Dec 2000 15:12:54 +1030 Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 15:12:53 +1030 (CST) From: Dan Shearer To: Mike Tancsa Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Dynamic routing reference sites In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Mike Tancsa wrote: > Apart from the above web sites, I dont know of any specific references per > se. The main source I used was "Internet Routing Architectures" ISBN > 157870233X (Second edition) to learn and understand routing at a conceptual > level. Once you have that, its not that difficult to get gated working as > you require. Respective mailing list archives are also very handy. Also, > the nice thing about Zebra is that the commands are very similar to what > you would do in a Cisco. I take it you run a non-trivial network using FreeBSD and one of gated or Zebra. What would you say to the common contention that Cisco hardware is exceedingly reliable (which is true, from my experience and that of many others) and that therefore PC-based hardware cannot compare to a Cisco when used for a border router. I keep thinking of quality PCs that are used in industrial applications for example, and in space missions and military tanks. It's pretty good hardware and it isn't good when a fan stops. It seems to me that a competent Unix sysadmin can gain real control by using a full Unix machine (well, a carefully secured Unix machine) as a border router. But many very competent Unix sysadmins disagree with comments along the line of "why bother". I have certainly seen networks wallowing helplessly because Cisco (and Bay, now Nortel) routers were misbehaving from a software perspective. I don't think Cisco has anything much to offer software-wise except a nice command interface and many manuals. Any comments? -- Dan Shearer Open Source Manager dan@tellurian.com.au To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message