real hardware router VS linux router

[nanog at daork.net (Nathan Ward)]

On 22/02/2009, at 8:27 AM, Leen Besselink wrote:

> If you had to choose, it's probably smarted to go with OpenBSD, it  
> has a
> lot better integration of packet filter, bgpd-daemon, ospf, vrrp- 
> like, etc.

If you have one eBGP session in your whole network, sure.

However if you have more than one, BGP cannot do the "Prefer the path  
with the lowest IGP next-hop metric" thing, as OpenBGPd does not know  
metrics from OpenOSPFd. Someone commented that OpenBSD would be able  
to do this soon as metrics were added in to the routing code in - 
current, but I have not tried this personally and a quick couple of  
queries on Google didn't reveal anything other than internal OpenOSPFd  
stuff.

I have however used OpenBGPd and OpenOSPFd with great success on  
routers we put at single-homed customer sites for a small business- 
only ISP I used to work at. We used BGP communities to put prefixes in  
to PF tables, and then shaped and accounted based on that. (Here in NZ  
we have a few thousand domestic prefixes, which transit to/from is  
often cheaper than transit off-shore).

--
Nathan Ward