[LiSA-Users] support for vendor hardware?

[Glen Johnson]

The DSS networks FAQ say they have linux driver, but whether it is available in 
source form is anyone's guess.  I see there are some open-source Broadcom 
drivers (for WRT54G projects, e.g. OpenWRT, Tomato, etc), but it is constructed 
by reverse engineering Broadcom's binary driver.  That approach probably doesn't 
scale well...

My primary interest in LiSA is the interface.  Obviously, w/o underlying 
performance, it would be moot, but...  Non-technical management place a high 
priority on "standard" interface (read junos or cisco).  The power and 
flexibility of linux is often lost on them due to the arcane configuration and 
usage of network subsystem interface.

I tried out LiSA over christmas break-  it looks promising.

Thanks for the detailed response.  Glen

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Radu Rendec" <radu.rendec at ines.ro>
To: "LiSA Project Users List" <lisa-users at lisa.ines.ro>
Cc: "Glen Johnson" <glen.johnson at alaska.edu>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 1:30 AM
Subject: Re: [LiSA-Users] support for vendor hardware?


On Thu, 2006-12-14 at 17:36 -0900, Glen Johnson wrote:
> Anyone running LiSA on highend 12/24/48-port fabrics (such as
> DSSNetwork's 8261 12-port switch) ?

Except for the developers, there are only 3 members on this list :( I
wish there were so many that at least one were familiar with DSS
Networks hardware and could answer you.

In order to run LiSA on a specific platform, Linux must run on that
platform and the network chips must be supported by the kernel.

Having a quick look at DSS Networks 8261
(http://www.dssnetworks.com/v3/gigabit_cpci_8261.asp), it seems that
they use Broadcom chips. Unfortunately they have a very strict policy
about chipset datasheets (they only give them to hardware manufacturers
under non-disclosure agreements) and thus nobody managed to write an
open-source driver (i.e. a linux driver) for them.

As for the kernel to boot, the CPU must be one of the supported
architectures. A few years ago a project was started at the university
where I used to study, and they managed to boot linux on a Cisco 2924
switch. They aimed at using the switch's ethernet ports from linux but
they got stuck at "talking" to the network chipset. It was visible on
the pci bus, but they had no documentation for it. And guess what: it's
a Broadcom chipset too :(

There is one more issue with these devices: most of them do almost
everything in hardware. And LiSA does almost everything in software.
Running a linux-based Cisco-like CLI on these devices is a different
project (than LiSA). Basically it's only an interface to the chipset's
internal function. Only small parts of LiSA could be useful (the CLI for
instance) and everything else should be rewritten/adapted.

Regards,

Radu