Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:56:39 -0600
From:      Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com>
To:        FreeBSD <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Long Day's Journey into <Bleep>
Message-ID:  <20110610165639.GA38479@guilt.hydra>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.00.1106100829490.19381@nber7.nber.org>
References:  <20110609005656.GA9183@thought.org> <15630_1307624948_4DF0C5F4_15630_82_1_D9B37353831173459FDAA836D3B43499BF89C4A2@WADPMBXV0.waddell.com> <BANLkTinPrEJ4LfNh8pE7%2BR3Akxj2F4Lpxw@mail.gmail.com> <20110609184829.GC33714@guilt.hydra> <A02E8905D5CFC76B890165F3@mac-pro.magehandbook.com> <20110609222807.GA34570@guilt.hydra> <C412077F-E713-400F-B02D-DDFD1DDB3723@mac.com> <20110610075943.497793ee@scorpio> <alpine.LFD.2.00.1106100829490.19381@nber7.nber.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help

--YZ5djTAD1cGYuMQK
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 08:34:06AM -0400, Daniel Feenberg wrote:
>=20
> I wouldn't think the OP was interested in saving money, there are
> other reasons for building your own switch. For example, there is
> a famous article "Tricks you can do if your firewall is also
> a bridge":
>=20
>   http://www.usenix.org/events/neta99/full_papers/limoncelli/limoncelli_h=
tml/

I'll read that.  Sounds interesting.

To be perfectly clear, the reason I'm looking into this is that I tend to
like to understand how things work, and to know how to build things I
need (most of the reason I got into programming in the first place).
Toward that end, I've decided to look into how one would build a switch,
and discovered that -- for the most part -- it seems one *wouldn't* build
a switch, so I decided to ask here since the subject of switches came up.
Obviously, a switch needs some kind of software running on it; it seems
reasonable to me that FreeBSD should be able to serve as the necessary
software, if only I can figure out how to build a switch from commodity
parts without completely breaking the bank.

In addition to that, it would be kinda nice to have a switch whose
internals I understand so that port-by-port failure of a switch will not
occur as a mysterious process I don't quite grasp, as so often occurs
with dedicated switches.  The fact any switches built after the turn of
the century seem to start dying within three years seems like a big
problem (I have one 10/100 Linksys switch from before the turn of the
century that still works great), after all.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

--YZ5djTAD1cGYuMQK
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD)

iEYEARECAAYFAk3yTMcACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKVPvgCfdeaeQYJ83Gw8N28+LhMuIoOD
NVcAn0hpM6lcD/SOZ4Mbnj9s6WfIojQo
=Dwnt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--YZ5djTAD1cGYuMQK--



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20110610165639.GA38479>