GRE tunnels anyone?

[Danny Howard]

On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 01:06:58PM -0500, Joshua Weaver wrote:
> The company I work for uses a lot of multicast tunnels, usually with a
> QOS/GRE implementation with quite pricy hardware.  I googled around a bit,
> it looks like basic vpn is supported for FreeBSD. I guess my questions are
> 
> 1.)    Does FreeBSD play well with vpn-capable routers  (like a 3Com 5012)
> 
> 2.)    Would getting acceptable latency tunneling multicast mean hardware
> that's just as expensive as a router costing thousands?

Joshua,

We run a tunnel using gif interfaces, managed by racoon.  The
performance is less than super, but I think that's a constraint of our
network resources.

My answer would be: "Why not grab a spare box and try it out?"  If the
day's diversion may lead you to saving thousands, then please spend a
little more effort and write a brief article on a blog or a journal
somewhere to help the next person who comes along asking your question.
:)

The handbook has a great chapter on how-to-setup-a-tunnel-from-scratch,
though it sounds like you don't need a lot of hand-holding.

I would LIKE to think that if we spent a bit of cash on proper VPN
hardware, that tunnel maintenance would be easier and performance might
be better.  Well, that's an aside.

Good Luck,
-danny

-- 
http://dannyman.toldme.com/