Paragonians

Opensource Router-XORP

Another leap by opensource community for deploying routable  network. My old post about Mikrotik router is very similar with this but the big difference between mikrotik and xorp is XORP (eXtensible open source router) is completely free…. No licence is required for it. Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernel and BSD Operating systems has support for XORP. Programmed in C++ and still in progress. 1.5 release is available for use and can be download from here.

Salient Features

• You can use xorp with its command line interface similar like linux command line.
• xorpsh is a default shell which comes with it like bash shell in linux.
• It almost supports every static and dynamic routable protocol BGP, RIP, OSPF PIM, SNMP etc…
• Its interface is very similar to juniper router and has two modes of operation

Operational Mode (Non-Privileged mode)
Configuration Mode (Privileged Mode)

Operational Mode

You can view the status and monitor your router services.

Configuration Mode:

You can load, change and update configuration on it.

• Firewall rules can be implemented for checking out the outgoing and incoming traffic of a router, you can add upto 65534, rule with less number is evaluated first, its firewall rules can be easily understandable if you have a good idea of IPTABLES in linux and unix.
• XORP supports FEA (forwarding engine abstraction) and MFEA (multicast forwarding engine abstraction) but only on operating system kernel not on hardware level.
• It allows you to define policies, which route should be advertised and which shouldn’t. If the routing policies are upgraded then it is republish to update the all the routing protocols.
• XORP LiveCD is available by this you can transform your intel86 machine into a working router. To learn more about all the above mentioned features consult with its user configuration manual.

Xorp community really hammered on my knee and doing great for this project.