4 ms·

This is really very interesting. I work with Juniper routers and switches all day and every day, the thing I love about them is they're built on top of FreeBSD

This is really very interesting. I work with Juniper routers and switches all day and every day, the thing I love about them is they're built on top of FreeBSD (now called JunOS, but it still harks back to FreeBSD when you drop to the shell) Something small and light and fast, running on FreeBSD with this added would be perfect for customer CPE equipment or for non-essential routing tasks. Very impressive, I look forward to seeing where this goes.

tptacek 15y ago
The data path on a Juniper isn't passing mbufs around the FreeBSD IP stack, is it? It's FreeBSD command-and-control, but my understanding is that the packet processing itself might as well be its own rtos.
- tryp 15y ago
  I don't know about juniper specifically but most multiport routers are built on packet processing asics with content addressable storage in local ram and built-in macs for each port. When a packet is encountered that requires more complex interaction than the asic can handle it's kicked up to a CPU for processing.
  - Nrsolis 15y ago
    This. Juniper has always used a (heavily hacked) FreeBSD core running on an embedded PC platform (Intel-based Routing Engine) for JUNOS that did all (or most) of the protocol related stuff and left the actual forwarding of packets to a specialized core of ASICs (The Packet Forwarding Engine). This has changed in recent years with some lower-level protocols being handled on the line-cards themselves on newer platforms. The vast majority of the protocols still run on the Routing Engine though.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      Yeah, sorry, I was talking about the control plane stuff. Does Juniper use any of the original FreeBSD IP stack for its control plane or exception path stuff?
      - Nrsolis 15y ago
        I'm not really sure. TBH, it's not really the limiting factor. The interconnect between the RE and PFE is something like 100mbps.
  - jr299 15y ago
    If one were interested in building something like this themselves or getting into the market, where would be a good place to start as far as acquiring hardware, learning about asic systems, and the software behind these systems? I've been building my own managed firewall and router systems for awhile on commodity hardware, freebsd, and nice nics and would like to look into taking it to the next level and perhaps starting a business in this area.
    - smutticus 15y ago
      The networking world is quickly moving away from custom silicon. Because of companies like Broadcom and Marvel it's getting easier and easier to buy/order ASICs instead of designing them. Cisco announced this year I think that all their lower-end switches will be using Broadcom. So go check out what these 2 companies have in terms of switch on a chip type ASICs. AFAIK no one has come out with a multiport PCIx card that can do L3 switching between its ports. That would be neat. And I think it's just a matter of time till someone does. I would buy such a card if it worked under Linux or FreeBSD just to play with.
      - nschrenk 15y ago
        NetFPGA might fit what you're looking for: http://netfpga.org/ http://netfpga.org/

tptacek 15y ago

The data path on a Juniper isn't passing mbufs around the FreeBSD IP stack, is it? It's FreeBSD command-and-control, but my understanding is that the packet processing itself might as well be its own rtos.

tryp 15y ago
I don't know about juniper specifically but most multiport routers are built on packet processing asics with content addressable storage in local ram and built-in macs for each port. When a packet is encountered that requires more complex interaction than the asic can handle it's kicked up to a CPU for processing.
- Nrsolis 15y ago
  This. Juniper has always used a (heavily hacked) FreeBSD core running on an embedded PC platform (Intel-based Routing Engine) for JUNOS that did all (or most) of the protocol related stuff and left the actual forwarding of packets to a specialized core of ASICs (The Packet Forwarding Engine). This has changed in recent years with some lower-level protocols being handled on the line-cards themselves on newer platforms. The vast majority of the protocols still run on the Routing Engine though.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Yeah, sorry, I was talking about the control plane stuff. Does Juniper use any of the original FreeBSD IP stack for its control plane or exception path stuff?
    - Nrsolis 15y ago
      I'm not really sure. TBH, it's not really the limiting factor. The interconnect between the RE and PFE is something like 100mbps.
- jr299 15y ago
  If one were interested in building something like this themselves or getting into the market, where would be a good place to start as far as acquiring hardware, learning about asic systems, and the software behind these systems? I've been building my own managed firewall and router systems for awhile on commodity hardware, freebsd, and nice nics and would like to look into taking it to the next level and perhaps starting a business in this area.
  - smutticus 15y ago
    The networking world is quickly moving away from custom silicon. Because of companies like Broadcom and Marvel it's getting easier and easier to buy/order ASICs instead of designing them. Cisco announced this year I think that all their lower-end switches will be using Broadcom. So go check out what these 2 companies have in terms of switch on a chip type ASICs. AFAIK no one has come out with a multiport PCIx card that can do L3 switching between its ports. That would be neat. And I think it's just a matter of time till someone does. I would buy such a card if it worked under Linux or FreeBSD just to play with.
    - nschrenk 15y ago
      NetFPGA might fit what you're looking for: http://netfpga.org/ http://netfpga.org/