Hi All
Actually, what is the different hardware router VS linux router?
Have you had experience to compare real router eg: cisco VS linux router?
eg: streaming speed... tcp / udp
Thank you for your information
While you could probably build a linux router that is just as fast as a
real hardware router, you're always going to run into the moving pieces
part of the equation.
In almost all scenarios, moving parts are more prone to failure than
non-moving parts.
Regardless of what you find out in your research, consider the above in
your cost-benefit analysis.
/Ryan
Deric Kwok wrote:
Hi All
Actually, what is the different hardware router VS linux router?
Have you had experience to compare real router eg: cisco VS linux router?
eg: streaming speed... tcp / udp
Thank you for your information
- --
Ryan M. Harden, BS, KC9IHX Office: 217-265-5192
CITES - Network Engineering Cell: 630-363-0365
2130 Digital Computer Lab Fax: 217-244-7089
1304 W. Springfield email: hardenrm@illinois.edu
Urbana, IL 61801
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
University of Illinois - ICCN
Not much really, besides your personal preference and the configurability of
the device (will maintaining some semblance of sanity), there are some very
nice custom linux based appliances out there e.g. vyatta routers, which
boast 10 times throughput of Cisco (2800 series) routers, however it all
comes down to what you want to do.
Ryan Harden wrote:
While you could probably build a linux router that is just as fast as a
real hardware router, you're always going to run into the moving pieces
part of the equation.
Not if you boot directly from USB key into memory with no disk drive.
Steve
Deric Kwok wrote:
Hi All
Actually, what is the different hardware router VS linux router?
Have you had experience to compare real router eg: cisco VS linux router?
Archives have discussed this at extreme length.
The most interesting thing I saw come out of it was this
http://data.guug.de/slides/lk2008/10G_preso_lk2008.pdf
See pictures describing the primary differences.
Imagestream is a very solid and mature solution. In order to head off the
Holy War I am a Cisco guy too. It just depends on your budget and situation.
Justin
Well,
Our operation uses linux everywhere and we have our own in house tiny embedded flavor with all the tools and things that make it suited for use in big and small boxes as many kinds of router and general packet flipping appliance. I have confidence built on long term, real world experience that says I can do this sucessfully, but the price I pay for it is the knowledge curve and having had to invent the 'right' mix of stuff, which includes compact flash based boot media, read-only filesystem, and minimal management (command line via ssh, you need to be an expert), and as well as having had to select the right hardware (constraints include power on always, no dumb bios to stop the boot process, and other issues).
I would never ever reccomend that anyone just 'use linux' for network appliances. It *can* do the job, but all the baggage of 'pc hardware' typically conspires to make for less than rock solid. Stuff like hard disks, which crash malfunction corrupt, and issues like - does the box power on when power is applied or does someone have to press a button? (You will note, most commercial hardware like routers and switches either don't have a power button, or simply default to being 'on' unless you take pains to flip buttons somewhere. But, PC's typically have a power button you have to press to make it come on). And there's other issues too - PC Bios's also conspire to get in the way and stop the boot process. If they detect some sort of error, a key press, a missing disk, or many other excuses, they stop cold waiting for someone to 'press f1 to continue', or worse. Also most PC systems also have single power supply units, and that which are less sturdy construction and are more likely to burn out at some point than the more heavy duty commercial grade units you see in commercial router/switch equipment).
The difference then between linux and 'a hardware router' then is that the manufacturer - cisco, juniper, whomever - has a large degree of control over the integration between their software and the hardware it runs on, and can dictate all of the things that makes the product work like the boot process and it's internal storage and wether there are sufficient fans and what kind of power supplie(s) are present and wether there's a hardware watchdog (that works!) and the type of chips serving as the ethernet controllers (which dictates all kinds of things that the mnf considers 'features'). It's a long list.
To summarize, you can do many jobs with linux. How WELL you do them, however, is more of a function of how much exerience and knowledge that you have. You can also do many jobs with commercial boxes, but how well you do that job can be expressed more in terms of selecting the right platform and plugging the right configuration lines into it, and both of these can easilly be 'done well' in exchange for money (router vendor support team, etc).
Mike-
Deric Kwok wrote:
Ryan Harden wrote:
While you could probably build a linux router that is just as fast as a
real hardware router, you're always going to run into the moving pieces
part of the equation.In almost all scenarios, moving parts are more prone to failure than
non-moving parts.
It's quite possible to build Linux-based devices with few or no moving parts. Small embedded boards, and flash drives, are common and cheap; and for low-load situations it's possible to build a passively-cooled (i.e. no fans, so zero moving parts) system.
Higher-performance setups with a few moving parts (mainly fans) are still possible, but at some point you have to balance the time and effort of R&D and performance-tuning your system. If you save a few thousand dollars on hardware, but spend a few days tweaking everything, you may not come out ahead after all.
At least two vendors (Imagestream and Mikrotik) offer complete packages based on Linux; the latter also sells the software separately, for installation on your own hardware, and both offer support if you need it.
David Smith
MVN.net
In scaling upward. How would a linux router even if a kernel guru were to tweak and compile an optimized build, compare to a 7600/RSP720CXL or a Juniper PIC in ASIC? At some point packets/sec becomes a limitation I would think.
-b
Bill Blackford wrote:
In scaling upward. How would a linux router even if a kernel guru were to tweak and compile an optimized build, compare to a 7600/RSP720CXL or a Juniper PIC in ASIC? At some point packets/sec becomes a limitation I would think.
It scales quite well, I'm sure, if you take about 12-16 servers, interconnect them at 256+ gigabit, build your own communication protocols between them. Hmmm. This is starting to sound like the Juniper layout prior to them having hardware. 
-Jack
I've asked this before and been told you can get PCI cards with multiple GigE ports, or even build specialized PCI cards that look like PICs.
So I congratulated them on re-inventing Juniper.
In scaling upward. How would a linux router even if a kernel guru were
to tweak and compile an optimized build, compare to a 7600/RSP720CXL or
a Juniper PIC in ASIC? At some point packets/sec becomes a limitation I
would think.
Is anyone building linux/bsd-box add-on cards with off the shelf packet
processors? Maybe something with the likes of
http://www.netlogicmicro.com/ or whatever?
Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
In scaling upward. How would a linux router even if a kernel guru were
to tweak and compile an optimized build, compare to a 7600/RSP720CXL
or a Juniper PIC in ASIC? At some point packets/sec becomes a
limitation I would think.I've asked this before and been told you can get PCI cards with multiple
GigE ports, or even build specialized PCI cards that look like PICs.So I congratulated them on re-inventing Juniper.
multiport network interfaces substantially predate the existence of asic
based l3 forwarding. I can just barely remember what a router looked
like in 1991, but our compaq and sun pedestal servers certainly had them.
we have variously and in use today as standardized formfactors in
embedded network optimized pc platforms.
cpci (6u eurocard) - which is neither compact nor pci but I digress
pmc
xmc
atca
amc
standard pci-e
mini-pci-e
when when consider that a gen2.0 8x pci-e point-to-point link can carry
~32Gbits/s symmetric the building blocks are certainly there for
multiport interfaces and 4xge or 2x10Gbe per slot interfaces are
relatively de riguer in pc based filewall/ips/network appliance platforms...
this plattform can handle about
100.000pps and 400mbit 1500byte packets with freebsd
http://lannerinc.com/Network_Application_Platforms/x86_Network_Appliance/1U_Network_Appliances/FW-7550
hardware:
4x pci 32bit, 33mhz intel gbit
1gb cf-card
1gb ram
with this hardware even more pps should be possible:
http://www.axiomtek.de/network_appliances/network_appliances/smb_network_security_platform/na820.html
hardware:
7x pcie (1lane each) connected network
add freebsd-net mailinglist people achieved nearly 1.000.000pps with servers (hp-servers)
I suggest to use freebsd os if quagga is the routing daemon as quagga runs more stable than on linux.
I have currently 300days uptime at my border routers (2x FW-7550), last week I had a peak with 230mbit's; no problem to handle.
Kind regards,
ingo flaschberger
Ingo Flaschberger wrote:
this plattform can handle about
100.000pps and 400mbit 1500byte packets with freebsd
http://lannerinc.com/Network_Application_Platforms/x86_Network_Appliance/1U_Network_Appliances/FW-7550hardware:
4x pci 32bit, 33mhz intel gbit
1gb cf-card
1gb ramwith this hardware even more pps should be possible:
http://www.axiomtek.de/network_appliances/network_appliances/smb_network_security_platform/na820.htmlhardware:
7x pcie (1lane each) connected network
A very quick test through a box much like the one in your latter link,
running FBSD 7.1, Quagga, and many IPFW rules, to a machine that is not
very busy:
receiver% netstat -h -w 1
input (Total) output
packets errs bytes packets errs bytes colls
1 0 60 1 0 170 0
1 0 60 1 0 170 0
1 0 60 1 0 170 0
1 0 60 1 0 170 0
47K 0 28M 1 0 170 0
132K 0 77M 1 0 170 0
133K 0 78M 1 0 170 0
133K 0 78M 1 0 170 0
131K 0 77M 1 0 170 0
132K 0 77M 1 0 170 0
132K 0 78M 1 0 170 0
133K 0 78M 1 0 170 0
Steve
ssd's remove the spindle from the equation..otherwise they both have fans that do fail.
You know you're off track when..
What operational relevance does this conversation, or the similiar ones that came before it, have? Are there a bunch in production contributing to the degradation of the best route between me and this video of cute kittens I'm trying to watch? Did something of this breed cause some eastern europe bgp flappy flappy this week? I've got BGP and OSPF speaking Linux machines under my care, but I don't think everyone wants to hear about them unless they're out of control like the cast of Lord of the Flies set loose in a supermarket.
Having carped, I'm obligated to offer a solution:
The technical discussion is certainly interesting to a small subset of NANOG participants, I'm sure (I do find it interesting, I promise), but I'm thinking this conversation is better elsewhere, like a beer & gear, or might I recommend forming some kind of nanog-shoptalk sub list? Is there one like it? Something for discussing the network substrata and not the weather a few layers up? I'm aware of stuff like c-nsp/j-nsp, but the Linux router crowd has it's own niche and there's certainly a place for discussing them, I just don't think it's.. here.
- billn
Hi All
Actually, what is the different hardware router VS linux router?
I'm continually amazed by the number of people who manage to conflate
two entirely different issues here.
There's *TWO* axes here:
I would be interested in a such a thing. I've tried approaching the Linux crowd for such information, but they seem more interested in writing patches to blink LEDs when Netfilter does something than talking about performance and scaling considerations.
If anyone would like to drop me a line off-list to point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful. So far the most useful information I've found on the topic has been via this list.
PS I'm talking specifically about Linux. The FreeBSD and OpenBSD crowd seem to have lists that provide this sort of thing already.
The people doing this commercially under Linux/FreeBSD, and have mods
to do higher PPS in certain conditions, generally don't talk (much.)
A few FreeBSD developers are pushing forward with higher PPS improvements.
If this is inline with what you want, then I suggest talking to them and
seeing how they can help.
Migrating to a superior platform (where "superior" here is "does what
I want better" isn't a -bad- idea.
Adrian