Hi everyone...been about a month since I tossed echomail, looks like this
area now has a wider distribution.

I run an Internet Service Provider and use FreeBSD on my 2 main routers,
plus my home router and 2 of my clients servers. I've found it to be a very
reliable, consistent and solid operating system.

As an ISP my machines tend to provide mainly server type functions, such as:

  * squid HTTP/FTP proxy/cache
  * sendmail for delivering and receiving email via SMTP
  * POP3 server for users collecting email
  * WWW server
  * FTP server
  * dialin and PPP server
  * DNS primary, secondary and forwarding name server
  * IP routing and accounting
  * firewall to block certain types of attacks

I'm particularly interested in low level IP routing functions, using
dynamic routing protocols which pass around routing information to decide
the best direction to send a packet in. I use OSPF internally between my
routers, static routes to Telstra, and BGP to AUIX (AUstralian Internet
eXchange). OSPF and BGP are both dynamic routing protocols. Using a routing
protocol internally means I can temporarily shift a permanent link to
another router without having to make any configuration changes at all (so
long as they have an account on both routers). It also provides a form of
redundancy to try to find an alternate route for data (if there are
multiple links) if an external link goes down or the feed dies, or even if
one of my own routers dies -- hasn't happened yet thankfully. :)

http://www.sensation.net.au/network.html shows a visual diagram of my
network (although it's about to change as I'm expanding).

                                     - - -

A couple of days ago I received what could be called a mainboard, except
it's minute size. It's a 386sx40 with 4Mb RAM, 2Mb flash "HD
emulator", and onboard interfaces for twisted pair ethernet, floppy
disk, IDE HD, parallel port, COM1 and COM2. Nothing unusual about it so far
except perhaps the onboard ethernet interface, but wait til you hear the
size: it's approximately 3.5" x 3.5"! The size of a 3.5"
floppy disk.

I am looking at the possibility of making up a router running FreeBSD, with
absolutely no moving parts (the board draws 350mA max at +5v so the power
supply probably won't even need a fan!). A router isn't really a server, so
it doesn't need an awful lot of storage space, aside from the initial
bootup. This board can apparently remote boot though, so I can pop a kernel
image on another server and it will load it over the network and boot that
way.

Building a router using embedded PC technology will be more expensive than
just using a standard PC, but it will be far more rugged and as a bonus it
will be heaps smaller. About the size of a VHS video cassette versus a
standard PC desktop case...

Cheers.


... rowan{at}sensation.net.au  |  http://www.rowan.sensation.net.au/
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