Slashdot Mirror

Funny, but I'm not sure I agree entirely (and I say that as one who *does* work -- professionally -- with Linux on a daily basis and really doesn't like Windows all that much).

If you want to work with Linux professionally, then by all means, polish those skillsets. Maybe an RHCE or LPCE wouldn't hurt, although I don't hold either one. But the big key, IME, is not to snub other skills, either. Yes, I work in a shop that uses mostly Linux servers (even Linux-based routers, made by a company called ImageStream, who I highly recommend), but we also use Cisco routers, Brocade switches and a few Windows servers -- and I work on them all. Let's face it, most places today, IT professionals wear many hats; being a one-trick pony doesn't cut it.

I have a friend who operates a small ISP in rural Iowa. I believe he's using ImageStream routers. Just a quick look at their lineup and I'm guessing that they can cover small to mid size businesses. They claim to be able to replace Cisco 3945 and 7206 routers. I'm not sure about hardware redundancy though.

I have a full-rate DS3 on a 600mhz Celeron, and six DS1 downstreams.

It isn't as expensive as you think.

Meh. Cisco doesn't have a lot of horsepower either, unless you want to pony up for their really big iron. If you want horsepower, buy a micro-ATX motherboard and a compact flash drive, put a really slimmed down Linux distribution on it, run IPTables to firewall your network and use Quagga to do any routing you need. You'll blow away any Cisco box you can afford, and have ten times the flexibility to boot.

Not that comfortable with doing it yourself? Buy an http://www.imagestream.com/ImageStream Envoy or Transport, then. It'll cost you a little more (I think a brand new Transport is about $800, but the Envoy is a lot less), and it'll smoke any Cisco up to 3-5X the price :)

Start with ImageStream and learn some IPtables.

One Link

http://imagestream.com/

To pwn them all.....

Cool, I'll have a look. Might be useful in my line of work since I tend to consult for small and medium-sized open-minded companies.

-b.

Because Image Stream http://www.imagestream.com/ already makes a REALLY capable Intel-based router, which is derived from Slackware, I believe. A lot of our Cisco gear is being phased out by the Image Stream products, since the Image Stream gear performs so much better, and is easier to manage. However, at my previous place of employment (also an ISP, but a much bigger one) we used exclusively Cisco equipment, and God help you if you tried to bring *anything* Linux into that environment :/

You are exactly right--you can get a much better router for (1/10th) the price by using something like the Image Stream routers, but most PHB's have heard of Cisco, whereas they haven't heard of Image Stream...and just as in the Microsoft vs. Linux battle for corporate acceptance, most PHB's have more faith in what they've heard of before, even if it's inferior in every other way. I'm lucky to have a really open-minded, intelligent supervisor where I'm at now, and that's one of the reasons I left the old job for this one.

Many people have pointed out reasons why this kind of thing is probably a bad idea, but if you still want to do it, ImageStream sells hardware platforms that can include several multi-port ethernet boards. There are reasons why they are marketed as routers and not switches, but they might be useful as switches for some unusual purpose.

Playing devil's advocate: this has everything you just asked for that is not a Cisco proprietary protocol.

Ummm....no. In anything more complicated than what a switch can do, you are using software to process packets.

Yes, Cisco (and others) have routers that use ASICs to handle immediate in/out "routing" in hardware, but as soon as you start putting any kind of ACL, any kind of port/IP translation, or anything else that requires any intelligence on the router, you bring in software, and all of the processing overhead that goes with it.

So....if you are going to do anything *useful* with a router would you rather have a 50-200MHz Cisco box running a bloated IOS (do you *really* use X.25, for example???), or a server-class x86 motherboard running a 1GHz processor with a kernel optimized for routing and software optimized for the protocols you actually use?

We use http://www.imagestream.com/ImageStream Linux-based routers where I work, and they absolutely run circles around the 2600, 3000, and as5000 -series routers that we have. Their support is absolutely phenomenal. When we have a problem with an ImageStream router, we frequently talk with their programmer, and he works with us until we have a patch installed on the box that fixes the problem. If there's a software bug in your Cisco router, it's "yeah, that will be fixed in the next IOS release"...which unless you paid out the <bodily orifice of your choice> for SmartNet you have to *buy*, even though their product was broken when you bought it.

You can use overpriced Cisco iron if you want; I'll stick with the Linux-based routers, thanks.

There are plenty of PCI WAN boards with Linux API/drivers on the market. You can get 1-8 port T1, 1-4 port OC3, and 1-2 port ATM and DS-3 boards. Most of them support channelized links, so you can break your T1 into 12 channels for data and 12 digital voice lines.

Here is a list of companies you can get them from:
http://www.sbei.com/ (distributor/products page http://www.ace-electronics.com/Hardware/T1E1J1/t1i ndex.html)

http://www.imagestream.com/Industrial_Cards.html - they even have a 4 port OC3 PCI card

http://www.sangoma.com/main/products/wanpipe - solid Linux support and drivers

http://www.digium.com/ - has 1, 2 and 4 port T1 boards that work GREAT with linux

Of course installation and configuration of this kind of solution will not be as simple as a Cisco WIC in your 2600.

The PCI 1000 series consists of WAN adapters that can be used in Industrial Series routers or OEM products running Linux. The 1000 series includes high-performance ATM adapters with one DS3/E3/J2, OC3, or OC12 interface. 1000 series cards comply with ATM Forum specification UNI 3.1 and TM 4.0. The adapters are based on advanced ATM segmentation and reassembly controllers (SARs) that are designed to optimize PCI bus utilization for increased performance with small packets. 1000 series adapters segment and reassemble AAL0, AAL3/4 and AAL5, and the cards manage and transmit raw cells, AAL1 and AAL2.

If Vyatta is the "dawn of open source networking" then who the hell are these guys?

I seem to recall my first home broadband connection used a 386, running Freesco linux from a floppy. The next one was a 486 running smoothwall linux with transparent squid web caching (because I found a CD drive in the trash).

All on junk hardware picked out of dumpsters (well, OK, I had to buy the cable modem I admit).

I'm sure you can't route six dozen T1s with complex firewall rules and packet mangling on a 486, but you can do anything a Cisco 2500 series could do, and you can still do QOS, NAT, firewalling, etc. etc. etc. using more recent dumpster hardware. PCs running tuned linux or BSD kernels work great for anything but ISP-grade stuff.

And this company will sell you open-source routers suitable for small ISPs, too.

Wake me up when the hype is over.

Probably a Cisco box rather

I've been intrigued by some of the other interface hardware for PCI and CPCI buses I've been seeing.

I'm not in the business, so I can't say personally whether I'd trust the platform. I'd like to learn more about the CPCI chassis and power options, and how they handle redundancy. Still, it looks like decent gear.

I agree that keeping the traffic at the ASIC level is important. There was talk some time ago of running Linux on Cisco hardware, which would (imho) combine the serious hardware platform with a highly tinkerable software layer. It still puts Cisco in the spot of hardware designer, though.

With FPGA prices doing a Moore's plummet, I think we'll see high-speed interfaces mated to user-definable hardware, to keep the traffic on a real switch matrix rather than a system bus. Thoughts?

XORP has a great idea, but they are several years late to the party. Apparently, NSF, Intel and its other backers have failed to learn from the dot-bomb era: you can't build a successful business on the backs of a product you're giving away at no charge. Do they plan to make it up on volume? :-)

Linux enthusiasts ought to look toward more commercial companies, such as ImageStream (http://www.imagestream.com/) who has been in business 10 years, and building Linux routers for 7. Their corporate profile says they have 30K units in the field.

MontaVista (http://www.montavista.com/) has an embedded OS for PPC and ARM that would provide something more extensible and functional than XORP.

Heck, even Technologic Systems (http://www.embeddedarm.com/) has more mature, embedded products than XORP.

XORP is a great idea--but you're better off going with companies that have already proven themselves in the market and have mature products.

and they seem to be doing pretty well. I went looking for weird NIC hardware and came across Imagestream. They make big routers with Linux at the core, on x86 hardware in industrial form factors. Definitely worth a look.

Also on the thread of interface cards, try Mikrotik. If you're doing wireless, the MiniPCI carrier boards will make your day.

Full disclosure: I'm not related to or affiliated with either of those companies in any way. I've never even bought anything from either of them. I just came across them while searching and thought they were bookmark-worthy.

PCI Adapter

PCI Adapter

Linux Router Page

The company that laid me off did me a wonderfull job.

twas ImageStream Internet Solutions.

email the president
email the guy who laid me off (CTO)

They laid me off the day I came back from vacation, and 2 days after my birthday, with no warning, What do you normally do on vacation ? Spend all your money, THANKS A LOT !

Ok, my gripe is over,

Tony

The company that laid me off did me a wonderfull job.

twas ImageStream Internet Solutions.

email the president
email the guy who laid me off (CTO)

They laid me off the day I came back from vacation, and 2 days after my birthday, with no warning, What do you normally do on vacation ? Spend all your money, THANKS A LOT !

Ok, my gripe is over,

Tony

The company that laid me off did me a wonderfull job.

twas ImageStream Internet Solutions.

email the president
email the guy who laid me off (CTO)

They laid me off the day I came back from vacation, and 2 days after my birthday, with no warning, What do you normally do on vacation ? Spend all your money, THANKS A LOT !

Ok, my gripe is over,

Tony