Zebra... What am I missing???

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (dsr at tao.merseine.nu)]

On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 08:01:34PM -0400, Bob George wrote:
> kyle at breezy.com wrote:
> 
> >Ok, router Guru's.  My Netgear router died last weekend.
> 
> Are you talking about the ~$100 "broadband router" type of product? If 
> so, while technically correct, the "router" aspect has probably been 
> overplayed by the marketeers. These devices do, indeed route, but not at 
> the same level as Zebra /Quagga. They're more of a "home firewall that 
> does route packets."

In fact, their routing is "static routing". You tell it the
routes, it believes you. Many are incapable of learning more
than two routes, in fact -- "inside" and "outside".

> >  So as an interesting project.  I thought I would turn a RH9 
> >workstation into a router using Zebra.

Perfectly doable. Perfectly unnecessary.
 
> zebra (or the unofficial successor, quagga) are specific ROUTING daemons 
> that handle RIP, OSPF, BGP and numerous variants... and ONLY routing. 

Specifically, routing protocols, designed to exchange route
information with other routers. In this scenario, there are
probably no other routers listening to yours.

> >  It's a PIII 500Mhz, 192MB RAM, 18GB Fujitsu SCSI HD, and now two NIC 
> >cards.  Setup DHCP for the other PC's on my network, no problem.  The 
> >second card talks to my ISDN TA, no problem.  I can reach the second 
> >card from any PC, but not the TA.  I had tried to setup pack 
> >forwarding in iptables earlier with the same results.  I've only 
> >configured the ripd protocol for Zebra.  What Next???
> 
> You probably need to get a basic iptables firewall/NAT going 1st. 
> Protect the gateway machine (your new "router") before connecting it to 
> the outside world.

What Bob said. Forget about RIP unless you know there is a
RIP-speaking router upstream from you. Ditto all the other nice
features of zebra/quagga.

If your upstream ISPs (note plural) will speak a routing
protocol with you, come back, and advice will be given.

-dsr- 



-- 
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