[TriLUG] OT: Connecting a Cisco router to a Linux box

[Jon Carnes]

On Fri, 2003-12-26 at 07:33, Chris Bullock wrote:
> Jon Carnes wrote:
> 
> >
> Jon,
> If I may ask, what do you use as your routing application, are you 
> kernel routing or using something like Zebra.  I have used OpenBSD and 
> Linux routing for over a year and Cisco hands down is more user friendly 
> at the command line IMHO.  

It must be a matter of which you learn first. I find that "hands down"
OpenBSD or Linux's Kernel routing setup are extremely easy.

> I need some type of "free" application to do 
> dynamic routing and possibly policy routing on the same box.

OpenBSD! OpenBSD does some excellent prioritization queuing and routing
of packets. There are even quite a few canned scripts which cover common
situations (some you'll find in the man pages).

>   More 
> likely I will need to do fail over routing, as this is the main point 
> where I wish to implement this.  So could you/someone point me in the 
> right direction about finding a solution to my situation.

I use Linux for most of my fail-over and HA (High Availability) stuff.
http://www.linux-ha.org/

Ultramonkey has a nice implementation of the LVS (Linux Virtual Server)
for HA situations. In general though I script my own fail-overs 
http://www.trilug.org/~jonc/Failover_scripts/

>   I am not 
> biased of using Linux over 'BSD, but I wish also to at some point place 
> firewall/ACL on these routers.
> --chris
> 
I think you'll find this list very helpful should you choose Linux :-)

Good Luck - Jon Carnes