Linux Core 6.3 as Routing and Switching VMware Appliance
Two weeks ago I finished creating a network host based on Linux Core 6.3 installed on WMware x86-64 virtual machine. I loaded Core Linux with several network extensions that allows host to generate, measure, route network traffic and scan networks. I also wrote a short article that contains a list of loaded extension.
Then I went further with the project and my goal was to build L3 switch and router based on Core Linux 6.3 loaded with Open vSwitch, Quagga, Bird and Keepalived extension. Those are the right extensions that turned the network host to routing and switching appliance. Furthermore the routing daemons Quagga and Bird and multilayer switch Open vSwitch are used in many large production networks.
The R&S appliance I built can be used for learning networking on Linux, routing and switching. It is available for download in Download section. For those who are interested in installation steps the whole process of extension installation is described in this article.
The virtual VMware appliance is based on Linux Core network host image and it contains all the extensions listed here plus the following extensions:
openvswitch - 2.4.90
quagga - 0.99.24.1
bird - 1.5.0
keepalived - 1.2.19
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