Re: GigaRouter (Was Re: Cisco as Big Brother))
I've spent days on the phone with [substitute your favorite router vendor here] customer support and engineers tracking down bugs in their routing software and trying to get bug fixes and workarounds from them, and I've spent comparable days running gdb on gated and staring at gated code and my personal opinion is that working with the gated code was a far more valuable experience for me. Gated is very stable for me now, and if I don't like the way something works, I change it or add a new feature if I want. My experience in consulting has taught me that off the shelf products from vendors with professional customer support (i.e. black boxes approved by Fortune 500 companies) are better for some clients, but I have clients that appreciate software like gated and are willing to pay for my time to work with it. You can always join the gated consortium. The gated web pages at Merit indicate that there is some level of support available for those willing to pay for it. Can anyone with experience comment on this? Is source code and a development environment available (and afordable) for the gated implementation in the Netstar product? If it is and the product is reasonable in other ways, I'd be on their doorstep in a minute. Are source licences available from any of the other major router vendors?
alex@relcom.eu.net writes:
>Subject: Re: GigaRouter (Was Re: Cisco as Big Brother)) >From: dvv@sprint.net (Dima Volodin)
>You said - "gated"? Oh my gawd...
I agree. Oh my gawd, someone is using one of the most efficient and reliable pieces of routing code around. What a really great idea. There are other smart router vendors who use various route and policy storage data structures from gated. Oh my gawd. Some smart router vendors are implementing dynamic non-intrusive policy config on their routers this year. Gated had that 4 1/2 years ago. Oh my gawd. Etc etc...
RobS
Gated would dump core like crazy and lose routes and adjacencies 5 years ago and it does the same now. Well, on the second thought, I don't think there's any real reason to bitch about it - all the other free reference stuff (sendmail, inn, etc, etc. Even 4.4) is plagued with the same problems. And everybody is kind of accustomed to the status quo. As of data structures - I remember there was a course on data structures on my first university year. And you know what? I haven't seen anything new since then - gated or no gated.
Let's compare: [...]
Oh. Don't tell my you do all this on your own and don't use some kind of conf-generating script.
Of cource gated.conf is not (in usial revision) so powerfull as IOS, but ideas - ideas in gated was great, and gated works well even now.
Karl Marx's soul to the soul of Friedrich Engels: "Oh yes. But the idea was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l..."
Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow
Dima
Rob: Thank-you for the kind comments about GateD. I will forward them to other GateD developers, especially Jeff Honig who is now at BSDI. Netstar is GateD Consortium member. We have been jointly working with Netstar on adding additional features to bgp. John Scudder has also been helping with this effort to enhance GateD. I think you will find the Netstar engineers very insightful as we have. A few of the engineers will be present for a technical discussion during nanog. Their additions to the gated product have enhanced the existing gated package. The next release of GateD will have this new software. Other additions to the next releases of gated will be: - re-written ospf to reduce the memory requirements, - gii - a cisco like command interface, - utilities for bgp monitoring, and - test tools. If anyone is interest in GateD membership or redistribution licenses, I encourage you to contact me. If you are interested in additional information on Netstar, I can also refer you to Netstar people as well. Please use either: gated@gated.merit.edu or skh@merit.edu. www.gated.org or www.merit.edu I'll be glad to give additional pointers or phone numbers to individuals privately. Sue Hares skh@merit.edu Technical Point of Contact Merit GateD Consortium
Sorry. Does all this discussion mean that new big Ascend's routers are/was?/will be?/ based on gated's experience? As for me, it's important. --- Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 239-10-10, N 13729 (pager) (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)
On Sat, 19 Oct 1996 alex@relcom.eu.net wrote:
Sorry. Does all this discussion mean that new big Ascend's routers are/was?/will be?/ based on gated's experience?
As for me, it's important.
We are planing on building our network out of Netstars and Cascade 9000s, so it it is important for us to know if this box is stable. Yes it does run gated, and I think the work netstar has put into it has made it very stable, and in many ways better then IOS. We have tested the netstar box and are very happy with it, but I am not sure it is ready to replace the cisco. One thing we will do is have the netstar peer with two router servers in each POP, the route servers will then peer with all the other RS in the other POPs. This should take a lot of the BGP load off the netstar because that is our biggest worry. Nathan Stratton CEO, NetRail, Inc. Tracking the future today! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone (703)524-4800 NetRail, Inc. Fax (703)534-5033 2007 N. 15 St. Suite 5 Email sales@netrail.net Arlington, Va. 22201 WWW http://www.netrail.net/ Access: (703) 524-4802 guest --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34
At 2:08 PM -0400 10/18/96, Susan Hares wrote:
Netstar is GateD Consortium member. We have been jointly working with Netstar on adding additional features to bgp. John Scudder has also been helping with this effort to enhance GateD.
This is correct (so is the rest that I didn't quote!). So, this: At 10:06 AM -0700 10/18/96, Bill Fenner wrote:
Netstar no longer uses their own modified gated; you can run whatever release of gated you like. The magic now happens below the routing socket, as opposed to in gated itself.
is both right and wrong. It's right in that Ascend (nee Netstar) has moved the "magic" to its (IMO) proper place below the routing socket. It's wrong insofar as they have been investing in improving and extending the gated they provide, to make it more stable and full-featured (we've added communities, aspath-prepend, route reflection and various other ISP-oriented features, also various bug fixes). Followups to this thread should probably be moved to private e-mail, or to gated-people@gated.org. Regards, --John -- John Scudder email: jgs@ieng.com Internet Engineering Group, LLC phone: (313) 669-8800 122 S. Main, Suite 280 fax: (313) 669-8661 Ann Arbor, MI 41804 www: http://www.ieng.com
I am afraid this discussion is not for nanog, but I can't resist to one simple question: - I have 'gdc dump' in gated, and this dump answers to all my question. Where is this command in IOS? How can I determine if Network-A is redistribute from STATIC to RIP (or OSPF) and is it anounced to the neighbour D? Through I think Cisco's engeneers knows gated well and get some lessions from this project (I hope). But I spend much my time with the gated's sources (and bugs -:)) and it was much better than to ask _why peer-address on Async-1 interface are not established into the routing table in IOS 11.2(0.25)? -:) --- Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 239-10-10, N 13729 (pager) (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)
I am afraid this discussion is not for nanog, but I can't resist to one simple question:
- I have 'gdc dump' in gated, and this dump answers to all my question. Where is this command in IOS? How can I determine if Network-A is redistribute from STATIC to RIP (or OSPF) and is it anounced to the neighbour D?
Its fun doing this on a gated box that is default free. ;-) Before the advent of gii you had to do a dump to get the information contained in sh ip bgp xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. Gated IMO is a good thing. The problem is the OS/hardware that it runs on top of. I would dred having to install something that needs a hard drive to route packets in a light-out POP. Scott
On Fri, 18 Oct 1996, Scott Mace wrote:
Gated IMO is a good thing. The problem is the OS/hardware that it runs on top of. I would dred having to install something that needs a hard drive to route packets in a light-out POP.
Gated doesn't require a hard drive. It merely requires a direct access storage device. With a little bit of creativity this requirement could be met with a RAM drive or a PCMCIA RAM card or similar. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
At 6:32 PM -0700 10/18/96, Michael Dillon wrote:
Gated doesn't require a hard drive. It merely requires a direct access storage device. With a little bit of creativity this requirement could be met with a RAM drive or a PCMCIA RAM card or similar.
Exactly. Note that the Ascend GRF-400 (the 4-slot GigaRouter) does exactly this with (I believe) a big honkin' pile of flash. --John -- John Scudder email: jgs@ieng.com Internet Engineering Group, LLC phone: (313) 669-8800 122 S. Main, Suite 280 fax: (313) 669-8661 Ann Arbor, MI 41804 www: http://www.ieng.com
On Fri, 18 Oct 1996, Scott Mace wrote:
- I have 'gdc dump' in gated, and this dump answers to all my question. Where is this command in IOS? How can I determine if Network-A is redistribute from STATIC to RIP (or OSPF) and is it anounced to the neighbour D?
Its fun doing this on a gated box that is default free. ;-)
Agreed. It takes a long time.
Before the advent of gii you had to do a dump to get the information contained in sh ip bgp xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.
Gated IMO is a good thing. The problem is the OS/hardware that it runs on top of. I would dred having to install something that needs a hard drive to route packets in a light-out POP.
You don't need a hard drive. Use some of the money you saved by not buying C***o to buy lots of DRAM. Boot from floppy. Or even buy a flash-based hard drive emulator. Or combine the two solutions. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 http://www.uk.vbc.net VBCnet West +1 408 971 2682 fax +1 408 971 2684
Jim Dixon writes:
Gated IMO is a good thing. The problem is the OS/hardware that it runs on top of. I would dred having to install something that needs a hard drive to route packets in a light-out POP.
You don't need a hard drive. Use some of the money you saved by not buying C***o to buy lots of DRAM. Boot from floppy.
Or even buy a flash-based hard drive emulator. Or combine the two solutions.
I've been thinking about this. A while ago I saw a product that emulated dual 1.4MB floppies in flash on an ISA card. This seemed like a good way to start. Has anyone actually tried this? What flash product did you use? /a --- Alexis Rosen Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC. alexis@panix.com
In message <199610191622.MAA06444@panix.com>, Alexis Rosen writes:
Jim Dixon writes:
Gated IMO is a good thing. The problem is the OS/hardware that it runs on top of. I would dred having to install something that needs a hard drive to route packets in a light-out POP.
You don't need a hard drive. Use some of the money you saved by not buying C***o to buy lots of DRAM. Boot from floppy.
Or even buy a flash-based hard drive emulator. Or combine the two solutions.
I've been thinking about this. A while ago I saw a product that emulated dual 1.4MB floppies in flash on an ISA card. This seemed like a good way to start. Has anyone actually tried this? What flash product did you use?
/a
--- Alexis Rosen Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC. alexis@panix.com
Is someone suggesting that floppies are more reliable than sealed hard drives? In my limited experience with routers interface cards, both the commercial and research (NSS) varieties are a lot less reliable than hard drives but I didn't know floppies were more reliable. ;-) We had a lot of tape drive failures due to the tempurature and keeping the same tape in the drive continuously (bad move!), but then we started backing up over the net and ignoring the tape drive. Of course we had many routers that were not reboot for over a year since gated and snmp proxy agents, etc could be replaced without rebooting the whole box, unlike with the software monolith model. Curtis
In message <199610190028.TAA00124@metal.err.com>, Scott Mace writes:
I am afraid this discussion is not for nanog, but I can't resist to one simple question:
- I have 'gdc dump' in gated, and this dump answers to all my question. Where is this command in IOS? How can I determine if Network-A is redistribute from STATIC to RIP (or OSPF) and is it anounced to the neighbour D?
Its fun doing this on a gated box that is default free. ;-)
Before the advent of gii you had to do a dump to get the information contained in sh ip bgp xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.
Gated IMO is a good thing. The problem is the OS/hardware that it runs on top of. I would dred having to install something that needs a hard drive to route packets in a light-out POP.
Scott
Reminds me of the early 1980s argument that DOS was better because it ran off floppies and didn't need a disk. You get a far less capable platform with IOS with no capability at all for long term logging, no capability for local analysis of logs, etc. We now have to deploy separate Unix boxes so we have some sort of intelligent device in the POP to do NM stuff. Curtis
participants (10)
-
alex＠relcom.eu.net -
Alexis Rosen -
Curtis Villamizar -
Jim Dixon -
John G. Scudder -
Michael Dillon -
Nathan Stratton -
Rob Liebschutz -
Scott Mace -
Susan Hares