route metric

[Michael W. Oliver]

On 2005-06-03T22:13:51+0300, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 03, 2005 at 08:16:36PM +0200, Hanspeter Roth wrote:
>> Hello,

>> I thought it is possible to have routes to the same destination but
>> with a different metric. But I can't find how to set the metric in
>> the route manpage.
>> How is a metric for a route set?

> We don't support that at the moment.

yeah, ru is right, unfortunately.  may i ask what you are trying to
accomplish?  if you have a dynamic routing protocol that you can tap
into, zebra can manage same-prefix routes of multiple administrative
distances (not same as metric) and keep the best route in the RIB for
you at all times.

there used to be patches floating around for 4.x that would allow a kind
of metric, but IIRC you couldn't use two (or more) same-metric routes
for per-packet balancing, rather the metric would be degraded for each
packet that was forwarded to a particular destination (it's been a while
since I looked, so I may be all wet on this).

it would be nice to have a feature like this, where you could have
multiple same-prefix, same-metric routes in a FIB, and the packets would
be balanced to the next hop, either on a per-flow or per-packet basis.
i have seen a lot of answers to this request over the years along the
lines of ``FreeBSD isn't a router'', which is sad since it does perform
the task of packet routing exceedingly well, and a heck of a lot cheaper
than vendor C.  all of the usual reasons that OSS is better apply here,
too.  who wouldn't like SSH on all of their routers without paying $$$
for a crypto image?!?

mind you, i am not complaining here, just making an observation.  if
this drives someone to prove me wrong, (many others and) i would be all
the happier!

-- 
Mike Oliver
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