So far, I've had a large number of questions about a statement I made here
in NANOG. The statement was made in passing, while I was looking for
sources for something that would run BGP4 and allow us to transition from
static single-homing to dynamic multi-homing. Rather than answer, yet many
more inquiries, I am posting the answer here in NANOG, to fore-stall
further such inquiries.
MHSC prefers open-source whenever we can get it and prefer to run
reference-standard code. This is why we run sendmail v8.8.8, qpopper, BIND,
and others. We are a Caldera VAR and our servers are built up from Caldera
Open Linux Standard edition, with about 30 add-ons <groan>. We *do* have
BRU, Netscape, and other commercial binaries that have been bought, but not
before attempting to find acceptable reference-standards. We have also
provided DewPoint/Caldera with input towards an Enterprise Server
distribution for Linux.
Anyway, we've applied for an ASN and ran into the BGP4 requirement. Ergo,
we were looking for the reference-standard BGP4 implementation, which is
GateD. We (I) was *very* surprised at the attitude exhibited at
<http://www.gated.org>. Very much anti-commercial. But, that does not
matter to me as I have $other$ things to worry about (Paying the rent
around here is one of them <sigh>). Ergo, having run *that* trail to
ground, I posted a query here in NANOG, that Dean Anderson, Shane Wright,
Craig Labovit, and others have answered.
I now have gated v3.5.9, for Linux, and am building it now. I'll probably
run into trouble, as I do with most things that don't have a configure
script, or have an otherwise non-standard build process (Why is it that
*only* the academic originated stuff is such a PITA? <sigh>).
Back to the point, we are a commercial technology R&D house that is also
bringing up an ISP (MHSC.NET). As such, since we actually have a
gawd-awful-scummy profit motive (why else form a corporation?), we do not
qualify for Academic membership in the Gated Consortium. The prices that I
quote here are for the level of membership which MHSC would have to sign-up
for in order to obtain what we really need. There are lower-orders of
membership, but if you look at the URLs you'll find that the minimum is
$10s of K-bucks$ for the first year, plus an annual maintentance agreement
of, at least, half of the first year premium (and we thought we had
profit-at-heart). Being a startup, we don't need such expense (it comes out
of *my* pocket, personally, and I ain't that rich).
Again, this is not a rant at the gated folks. I frankly wasn't much
surprised. I thank all those who helped me obtain the sources for
gated-3.5.9. BTW, Flemming did comment that since gated was NSF funded, it
may be inappropriate for such fees to be charged. In reallity, the message
clearly states that "start-ups need not apply". They just want to keep out
the riff-raff. I've long-ago quit getting emotional about these things and
have come to expect it from acadamia-types.
The URL is ;
The latest public release of gated is 3.5.9 and is available at:
ftp://gated.merit.edu/net-research/gated/gated-3-5-9.tar.gz
Lots of information regarding licenses, bug reports, and releases can be
found at http://www.gated.org/Cheers,
Shane
Thank you, Shane.
