route metric

[Charlie Schluting]

> 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?!?
> 

It does do many things well enough, but have you tried to use dot1q on
5.x with an Intel chip? Those bugs are reason #1. You can't have a
production router that reboot when you run tcpdump or traceroute :)

Reason #2 is latency. Vendor C put a lot of time and money into
features like CEF that take advantage of hardware packet forwarding. A
purely software-based device simply can't keep up with large flows,
and definitely introduces latency--especially when filtering.

My $0.02 :)

-Charlie