Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:52:46 -0500 From: "Ken Menzel" <kenfreebsd@icarz.com> To: "Vince" <jhary@unsane.co.uk>, "'Suporte Matik'" <asstec@matik.com.br>, <freebsd-isp@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Network oriented services with FreeBSD Message-ID: <091a01c533d8$1f8eec60$8adb7bd1@icarz.com> References: <200503272143.j2RLhXXj072890@unsane.co.uk>
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Vince" <jhary@unsane.co.uk> To: "'Suporte Matik'" <asstec@matik.com.br>; <freebsd-isp@freebsd.org> Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 4:43 PM Subject: RE: Network oriented services with FreeBSD > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: owner-freebsd-isp@freebsd.org >> [mailto:owner-freebsd-isp@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Suporte Matik >> Sent: 26 March 2005 17:29 >> To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org >> Subject: Re: Network oriented services with FreeBSD >> >> On Saturday 26 March 2005 11:53, Bob Martin wrote: >> > We do all of our routing and firewalls with FreeBSD, instead of >> > dedicated equipment like Cisco. In short, a Xeon based PC >> (we're using >> > mostly ~2ghz, single processor boxen) that can be bought >> for less than >> > a $1000 will do almost anything a $15,000 dollar name brand >> > router >> > will do. And it will do a few things the named brand units >> wont, like >> > traffic analysis. Instead of having the dedicated equipment and a >> > server, we just have a server. >> > >> >> Hi >> probably not a fair comparism since your $15K router will >> have some pretty clever interfaces which you possible do not >> get or at least have to buy to put them into your PC and >> configure them if you can. >> Lots of things IOS can do FreeBSd can still not, as CEF, >> class maps, loadbalance, backuproute, VoIP to call only some >> IMO BGP with Zebra on FBSD also is not close and reliable >> enough to CISCO BGP . >> So what you say may be ok for a simple router with some >> functions but a cisco 2xxx does not cost 15k but all depends >> on size of the network. May be an ISP with a small link does >> it well without dedicated router but if you talk about >> network services I don't know ... >> And don't forget the disks, I will not even think about if a >> HD crashes on a network router. I have some Ciscos running a >> couple of years now without touching them. >> Hans > > > Disks are not too much of an issue as with some tweaking you can > either > A) nfs boot your freebsd router from redundant sources > B) use pcmcia or similar solid state filesystem > C) use software/hardware mirroring. > And the one time a freebsd box I had had a hard disk failure it > stayed up > Untill I replaced it anyway as it had minimal disk usage. > > Also with most of the hardware routers its not the hardware that > costs > Its support and upgrades. I've had freebsd Firewalls run for at > least > 3 years with no reboot so uptime is hardly an issue. I havent ever > had > to have a router run that long As I'm quite new to the ISP rather > than > end user side of things. > > > Vince > http://www.freesbie.org/ Even better than mirroring get rid of the hard drive completely with a bootable CD-image currently based on FreeBSD 5.3. FreeSBIE is a LiveCD based on the FreeBSD Operating system, or even easier, a FreeBSD-based operating system that works directly from a CD, without touching your hard drive. Ken
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