RE: IGPs and services?

[jlewis () lewis org]

On Tue, 16 May 2000, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> > ww () shadowfax styx org: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 10:34 PM
>
> > What  is  the  general  feeling  about running  routing  protocols  on
> > web/dns/mail servers?
>
> Technically, not a problem. However, there is a school of thought that
> thinks that to be a bad policy. That routing functions should be on
> appliance-level systems, like routers. There is also some merit in that
> appliances are more reliable, mainly because nothing *else* can cause an
...
> reboot a system, at times. If that system is ALSO a critical router then
> the entire net is down until the reboot is complete. It is generally not

Running a routing protocol on a unix box doesn't mean you're using it as a
router.  Perhaps he just wants OSPF on a few servers so they can send
their packets more efficiently.  Consider a case where you have a few
access servers and unix servers on the same switch and a router connecting
that POP to your backbone.  Having a routing protocol on those unix boxes
means they can send packets directly to the appropriate access server (or
the router) rather than everything to the router, just to have it spit the
packets back out headed for an access server on that segment.

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 Jon Lewis *jlewis () lewis org*|  I route
 System Administrator        |  therefore you are
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