[Cerowrt-devel] cheap BGP capable routers?

[Cerowrt-devel] cheap BGP capable routers?

[Dave Taht]

I'm casting about for some old, cheap, cisco/juniper/etc *actual
hardware* routers, with bgp capability, for some interop testing in
light of my upcoming talk at netdevconf. They need not be fast, need
not have more than 2 ports, it would help for the software to be
maintained and current.

I hit ebay and an asr-1000 still goes for 6k. Anything "out there"
that is significantly cheaper than that?

-- 

Dave Täht
CTO, TekLibre, LLC
http://www.teklibre.com
Tel: 1-831-205-9740

Re: [Cerowrt-devel] cheap BGP capable routers?

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019, Dave Taht wrote:

> I'm casting about for some old, cheap, cisco/juniper/etc *actual
> hardware* routers, with bgp capability, for some interop testing in
> light of my upcoming talk at netdevconf. They need not be fast, need
> not have more than 2 ports, it would help for the software to be
> maintained and current.
>
> I hit ebay and an asr-1000 still goes for 6k. Anything "out there"
> that is significantly cheaper than that?

Buy a Cisco 7206 VXR with NPE-G1. They cost around 100-200USD for a 
complete unit. They even do fair-queue and run much of the original code 
from the 90ties (I doubt it's been touched much).

If you need full Internet BGP tables then it needs to have 1GB of RAM.

I have close to 20 year experience with these kinds of boxes, so I can 
help you before you buy.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike@swm.pp.se

Re: [Cerowrt-devel] cheap BGP capable routers?

[Dave Taht]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 10:55 PM Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 20 Feb 2019, Dave Taht wrote:
>
> > I'm casting about for some old, cheap, cisco/juniper/etc *actual
> > hardware* routers, with bgp capability, for some interop testing in
> > light of my upcoming talk at netdevconf. They need not be fast, need
> > not have more than 2 ports, it would help for the software to be
> > maintained and current.
> >
> > I hit ebay and an asr-1000 still goes for 6k. Anything "out there"
> > that is significantly cheaper than that?
>
> Buy a Cisco 7206 VXR with NPE-G1. They cost around 100-200USD for a
> complete unit. They even do fair-queue and run much of the original code
> from the 90ties (I doubt it's been touched much).

wow.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-7206VXR-Router-W-NPE-G1-Dual-AC-3-x-Gigabit-GbE-Ports-7206-VXR/303045454855?epid=1503935635&hash=item468eeaac07:g:xDsAAOSw~OdVcLaO

An edgerouter X does all the same thing for $40, but I could use
another spaceheater.

:)

thx!

As best as I can tell there are three main variants of cisco IOS - A
qnx version (is that this box?), and two different linux based ones,
IOS-XE which doesn't work with 240.0.0.0/4, and IOS-XR, which does.

#show version
Sun Feb 17 21:08:19.783 UTC Cisco IOS XR Software, Version 6.5.2.28I
show ip int br
Interface IP-Address Status Protocol Vrf-Name
 ... elided...
GigabitEthernet0/0/0/7 241.0.0.1 Up Up default
GigabitEthernet0/0/0/9 255.255.255.254 Up Up default

XR at least, in a vm. Can I trust the vm to be correct? Or should I go
looking for actual hw?
What sort of penetration do each of these types have?


> If you need full Internet BGP tables then it needs to have 1GB of RAM.

Nope, just need to see what errors get thrown off with a half dozen
obscure routes.

>
> I have close to 20 year experience with these kinds of boxes, so I can
> help you before you buy.

thx again! are you (or anyone here?) coming to netdevconf?

>
> --
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike@swm.pp.se



-- 

Dave Täht
CTO, TekLibre, LLC
http://www.teklibre.com
Tel: 1-831-205-9740

Re: [Cerowrt-devel] cheap BGP capable routers?

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019, Dave Taht wrote:

>
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-7206VXR-Router-W-NPE-G1-Dual-AC-3-x-Gigabit-GbE-Ports-7206-VXR/303045454855?epid=1503935635&hash=item468eeaac07:g:xDsAAOSw~OdVcLaO
>
> An edgerouter X does all the same thing for $40, but I could use
> another spaceheater.

For you it might do everything, but I can assure you it's not even close 
in functionality. That puppy is the best ever "swiss army knife" Cisco 
ever made. Completely CPU based forwarding and took ALL THE INTERFACES 
imaginable. It can take ISDN E1/T1 interfaces and act as TDM/SIP gateways 
etc. It does it all.

> As best as I can tell there are three main variants of cisco IOS - A
> qnx version (is that this box?), and two different linux based ones,
> IOS-XE which doesn't work with 240.0.0.0/4, and IOS-XR, which does.

Tnis box runs "classic IOS". So if you want to lab 240.0.0.0/3 7206 isn't 
a good box.

I talked to people about juniper, and the response I got was SRX320 and 
turn off the firewall and run it in router mode. It can evidently run 
recent JunOS.

> XR at least, in a vm. Can I trust the vm to be correct? Or should I go 
> looking for actual hw? What sort of penetration do each of these types 
> have?

IOS XR is typically run on the largest carrier-grade boxes for 
core/distribution role. IOS XE is run on the newer mid-range boxes (it's 
evolved from classic IOS) and all the smallish boxes run IOS.

Yes, you can trust the vm for 240.0.0.0/3 testing. Same with vMX 
(Juniper). We have Nokia/ALU SROS as VM as well, also Huawei. That covers 
most of the core routing space.

> Nope, just need to see what errors get thrown off with a half dozen 
> obscure routes.

Right, then you should be fine with any VM.

> thx again! are you (or anyone here?) coming to netdevconf?

I am not.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike@swm.pp.se

Re: [Cerowrt-devel] cheap BGP capable routers?

[Dan Mahoney]

ASR1K’s run IOS-XE.  If you need something that runs IOS classic, even a 7206VXR might be fine, but the software is like a year out of date and the max ram can’t take a full BGP table right now.

I might have something floating around that you can borrow.

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 20, 2019, at 21:26, Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm casting about for some old, cheap, cisco/juniper/etc *actual
> hardware* routers, with bgp capability, for some interop testing in
> light of my upcoming talk at netdevconf. They need not be fast, need
> not have more than 2 ports, it would help for the software to be
> maintained and current.
> 
> I hit ebay and an asr-1000 still goes for 6k. Anything "out there"
> that is significantly cheaper than that?
> 
> -- 
> 
> Dave Täht
> CTO, TekLibre, LLC
> http://www.teklibre.com
> Tel: 1-831-205-9740