Minimum router for BGP

[nickwhite]

Hi guys, this is slightly offtopic, but I know there are many Network Admins in here that are more experienced than I.

We're currently running two T1s (CEF 'bonded') on a Cisco 2600. We're going to need to run BGP on this edge router soon as we'll have multiple upstreams. Anyone know what the minimum router is that will run BGP? I did some googling, and all I found was some posts that indicate a 2600 wouldn't, because it maxes out at 64MB Ram, and BGP needs more than that(?). Would a 3600 handle this? Or any other recommendations such as Imagestream or others that would work? We may be bonding 2 more T1s here, for a total of 4, so we'll need something with some headroom for expansion.

Used Cisco's are so cheap these days, so I'd prefer to stick with that.

[Redclaws]

Hi guys, this is slightly offtopic, but I know there are many Network Admins in here that are more experienced than I.

We're currently running two T1s (CEF 'bonded') on a Cisco 2600. We're going to need to run BGP on this edge router soon as we'll have multiple upstreams. Anyone know what the minimum router is that will run BGP? I did some googling, and all I found was some posts that indicate a 2600 wouldn't, because it maxes out at 64MB Ram, and BGP needs more then that(?). Would a 3600 handle this? Or any other recommendations such as Imagestream or others that would work? We may be bonding 2 more T1s here, for a total of 4, so we'll need something with some headroom for expansion.

Used Cisco's are so cheap these days, so I'd prefer to stick with that.

It depends on what routing tables you are being sent and who you are peering with.

I suspect that all you are wanting to do is dual home. In this case, ask your upstream provider to send "default routes only" and not the entire routing table. A 3640 with 128mb RAM will be fine for this.

Peer with anyone else or get full routes and you could be in trouble.

[knolan]

We are also looking at doing BGP Peering, But with 2 upstream providers and 1 downstream BGP client.

My understanding is in-order to work with the downstream client we will need to have a full routing table?


Would v2 of StarOS be capable of running this, and how much ram would you suggest we have in the box.

This post http://forums.star-os.com/showthread.php?t=4249 is suggesting that 256mb would be the minimum


Also, is anyone using StarOS for BGP, and could you share your configuration.


Thanks
Keith

[BrevardWireless]

I cannot tell you about StarOS but I can tell you the imagestream routers are excellent. Best router decision I have ever made with 24x7 tech support for anything you can do with the router - not just the hardware.

Having said that - if you can configure Quagga / BGP and have the memory on Star-OS V3 I see no reason you would be technically (in BGP terms) less capable than the imagestream as it runs quagga as well.

I do believe many more Imagestream interface options are available (for T1, DS3 etc) for router purposes.

Scott

[knolan]

I thought people would like to know that you can use StarOS V2.11.0 PC Router edition to do BGP peering on the internet.

We are also doing all our CBQ traffic shaping and P2P traffic shaping on the same machine.

The Machine is a P4 with 1GB of ram.

We are recieving a full route from 1 upstream provider at the moment, and over the next week should have 2 more peers connected to provide backup routes to the internet.

As you can see from the image below, we aren't hammering the machine, but I can say that at one stage the RAM being used jumped to 480MB, and if you are using RIP, make sure that you aren't injecting the BGP routing table into RIP as it will cause the entire network to crash due to lack of processing power and ram on WRAP's & WAR's.

http://www.corkcommunitybroadband.ie/images/v2.11.0-BGP1.PNG

[nickwhite]

Does V2 support fiber, T1, or DS3 interfaces? There used to be a V3 thread with the list of supported hardware/chipsets, but I can't find it at the moment.

[eoinok]

nick, straight forward answer is no, that I am aware of
The most straight forward way is to get something to convert the media. As in fibre ethernet to copper ethernet so that you can now send the traffic to the eth port on your staros PC and work away from there.

[Beebe]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that BGP doesn't have to be on the router which connects to your upstream provider. So you could use your cisco router with the limited RAM and then have a second box such as StarOS V2 (or V3 when they add BGP) one or two hops upstream from that.

Thanks,
Roger