Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 00:12:20 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Chip" <chip@wiegand.org> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: replacing a cisco router with a fbsd box Message-ID: <010f01c132b5$70b58c20$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <01083123393400.44697@chip.wiegand.org>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: Chip [mailto:chip@wiegand.org] >Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 11:40 PM >To: tedm@toybox.placo.com >Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: replacing a cisco router with a fbsd box > > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of >>Chip >>Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 6:28 AM >>To: fbsd >>>Subject: replacing a cisco router with a fbsd box >>>At work I have 3 cisco routers - a 1600, 2500, 2600. The >>>1600 has proven >>>to be the most unreliable piece of crap imaginable. >> >>Your probably experiencing this because you DON'T have >>Cisco Service, and >>thus aren't allowed to log into Cisco and download >>current firmware images for the routers. What people don't >>understand when they purchase Cisco routers is that Cisco >>isn't like LinkSys or most other retail devices where there is >>just ONE version of firmware and when a bug is discovered >>in it the manufacturer releases a new version. With Ciscos >>there are many, many versions that do different things. If you >>as a purchaser aren't willing to spend the extra money for a >>Cisco service or retain someone like me (who works on the >>things professionally among the many other things I do) then I >>say you have no business purchasing the devices to start with. > >Oh Ted, you're too harsh, and too quick with the assumptions. I just don't like seeing the 1600 slammed for no reason. Of course, it's possible that you can get a bad piece of hardware - but I've only seen 2 end-node Ciscos that ever had trouble. One was a 1600 that was being used as a VPN termination device and pumping up the ram fixed the problem. (it supported over 40 simultaneous connections before upchucking, what more can you expect with 4MB of total ram in the thing?) The second was a used 1005 that I bought that had a bad ethernet port on it. >The company did buy a service contract with the router, which >ran out a few months ago. And at that time the router was updated >with the latest version of the IOS. Hmmm - are you absolutely sure that your COO login is no longer valid? Have you tried it recently? You might. >Which did nothing to solve the problem of it needing to be >'rebooted' by a power-off. AND the company also has retained >a Cisco consultant to handle configuring our routers. They swear >there is nothing wrong with it. > Oh geeze - well let me say this - if you ever have a consultant come in to work on a Cisco router who tells you there's nothing wrong with a Cisco router that you can't just login to and issue the "reload" command to reboot it, then he doesen't know what he's talking about. That's just common sense - if the machine is malfunctioning you don't sit there and tell the customer it ain't broken!!! Sure, sometimes it's _hard_ to pinpoint an intermittent problem. But, at the bare minimum the consultant should have at least swapped out your router with a loaner for a week or so to see if the problem kept happening, that's the very first thing I'd do after making sure there wasn't anything obviously wrong with the image version or the configuration. Rebooting the device and when it comes back up just saying that you don't see anything wrong is the kind of amateurish troubleshooting that is used with Windows users. >-snip- >>Cisco IOS is just like any other operating system, >>there's good versions and bad versions. Cisco deferrs the >>bad versions quite rapidly but unless you have some >>experience with IOS versions, your not going to understand >>what's going on with IOS versions even if you did have >>COO access. We have many, many customers with >>rock-solid 1600's. > >I sent a follow up message, maybe you missed it, where I >made a correction of the router model, it's a 2610. We also >have two 2500's and a 1600, all of which have never had >any problems what-so-ever. > I did - but what I said still applies. I think your consultant send you down the yellow gold brick road. When faced with an intermittent router, first you review the configuration, (both hardware and software) then if there's nothing wrong with that you do a hardware swap with a loner and see if the problem follows the device or not. It's not rocket science. >>Frankly if yours is such a piece of junk then please sell it >>to me for what you are saying it's worth and I'll find a good >>home for it. :-) >>Ted Mittelstaedt >>tedm@toybox.placo.com >>Author of: The FreeBSD >>Corporate Networker's Guide > >Good book by-the-way, I bought a copy soon as it hit the shelves. > Thank! >Regards, >-- >Chip > >>Book website: >>http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >> The cisco router >>runs >>nat and firewall services currently, should be easy to >>replace with a >>fbsd >>box. >>I am wondering if it is possible to replace it with a >>fbsd machine? >>The problem I see with this is the connection of the >>csu/dsu to the >>router - >>it uses some funky block connector to plug into the >>cisco router. Is >>there a >>way to convert that block connector (I don't know the >>proper name for >>it), >>to plug into an ethernet card on the fbsd box? Or is >>there a pci card >>available >>for the fbsd box that will accept this funky block >>connector? >>-- >>Regards, >>-- >>Chip Wiegand >>Computer Services >>Simrad, Inc > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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