I think you guys are both missing what I think was Jon's original point:
Routers forward packets faster than PCs, but the forwarding function and
the routing protocol function do not have to reside on the same box. You
can add a PC (workstation, whatever) which runs the routing protocol and
stuffs routes into the router. It doesn't have to support the link-layer
du jour. Ethernet will do the job just fine.
As I recall the original discussion was of colocating a router, to forward
packets, with a workstation, to compute routes.
So what would the normal implementation of such a design be? ebgp-multihop
all of your peers into the PC, and then a single peering session the Cisco,
presuming no "next-hop-self" routes?
I can see some amount of value in such a design, if it could be made to work
correctly. Does anybody have the spare equipment to build a lab? (pfeh, yeah,
right)
So what would the normal implementation of such a design be? ebgp-multihop
all of your peers into the PC, and then a single peering session the Cisco,
presuming no "next-hop-self" routes?
I can see some amount of value in such a design, if it could be made to work
correctly. Does anybody have the spare equipment to build a lab? (pfeh, yeah,
right)
It's just as 'routing policy server' works. There is such projects
and it seems there is some good things in this idea.
This is effectively the way we do ISDN PRI backup -- the BGP host
isn't (necessarily) in the same router that is actually switching
the traffic. So it does work, yes. (This is all with Ciscos, BTW.)
Yes, PCs and other workstations can route traffic too. We know that.
But as has been noted, this has little or nothing to with with the
I-D, and probably nothing to do with the CIDR FAQ either. It
would be very beneficial if everybody tried to stay on track.