mike wrote: > 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). >
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. Also depending on the structure and needs of your network, PC-routers may be cheaper and thus you can buy more of them for redundancy. Linux has other qualities, for smaller router and firewall setups I would prefer OpenBSD. But people can do whatever they want, hell even my (Sony Bravia) TV runs Linux. > Mike- > > 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 >> > >