administrative distance

abirami · 09-23-2004, 01:56 AM

hi all,
we are trying to build a router on linux machine. the setup is as shown:

client (192.168.0.67)----> linux(router) <----- server(10.0.0.1)

both the client and server are directly connected to the router on interfaces eth0(192.168.0.35) and eth1(10.0.0.102) respectively.
now is it possible for me to configure static routing,or any routing protocols(ex: rip,ospf).

and what is administrative distances,why it is used,will this be used in my setup?

bye,
abirami

Demonbane · 09-23-2004, 02:38 AM

Is that your whole network(ie just one router in between)?
If so then you don't need to worry about static routes/routing protocols/administrative distance etc.
Configure ip forwarding on the Linux router and that's it.

abirami · 09-23-2004, 06:02 AM

Thanx for your reply Mike

Actually what we are trying to do is test the different networks. What has been configured is just the first step. i.e we are moving step by step.

First with 1 router(linux box) and a client and server we are trying to test the performance and function of the network protocols. That is static routing conditions, rip protocol ans ospf.

Then we would move on to the second step of configuring 2 routers and a client and a server, and go on.

Does configuring static route will work on this simple setup of ours.

Abi

Demonbane · 09-23-2004, 06:15 AM

Well RIP or OSPF aren't any good with one lone router, they're protocols used for exchanging routing information between routers
You need at least 2 or 3 routers if you want to play with these routing protocols.
This is an extract from the cisco website on administrative distance:

Quote:

Administrative distance is the first criterion that a router uses to determine which routing protocol to use if two protocols provide route information for the same destination. It is a measure of the trustworthiness of the source of the routing information. Keep in mind that administrative distance has only local significance; it is not advertised in routing updates

btw I'm not Mike

phonecian · 09-23-2004, 06:43 AM

As far as I know the protocols you refer to are used by specialist routers running their own OS (cisco et all). Linux routers run the linux OS and till now you cannot run OSPF, RIP etc out of Linux.
Someone else might like to correct me on that but I think its right. You'll find Linux routers tend to be used on small networks where automatic router updating is not an issue.

Checkout freesco if you are looking at Linux routers. As well as being able to support up to 12 network connections, it has the charm of running in (non writeable) ramdisks - which is pretty close to the flash memory concept employed by specialist routers.

Demonbane · 09-23-2004, 07:02 AM

With proper tools(routed etc) Linux can support RIP/OSPF, they're just protocols for exchanging routing information, nothing more.

It'll be a shame if it doesn't, Windows 2k/2k3 server supports them out of the box.