Chapter 1: Overview 1
1 Overview
Zebra is a routing software package that provides TCP/IP based routing services with
routing protoco ls support such as RIPv1, RIPv2, RIPng, OSPFv2, OSPFv3, BGP-4, and
BGP-4+ (see Section 1.4 [Supported RFC], page 3). Zebra also supports special BGP Route
Reflector and Route Server behavior. In addition to traditional IPv4 routing protocols,
Zebra also supports IPv6 routing protocols. With SNMP daemon which supports SMUX
protocol, Zebra provides routing protocol MIBs (see Chapter 15 [SNMP Support], page 75).
Zebra uses an advanced software architecture to provide you with a high quality, multi
server routing engine. Zebra has an interactive user interface for each routing protocol and
supports common client commands. Due to this design, you can add new protocol daemons
to Zebra easily. You can use Zebra library as your program’s client user interface.
Zebra is an official gnu software and distributed under the gnu General Public License.
1.1 About Zebra
Today, TCP/IP networks are covering all of the world. The Internet has been deployed
in many countries , companies, and to the home. When you connect to the Internet your
packet will pass many routers which have TCP/IP routing functionality.
A system with Zebra installed acts as a dedicated router. With Z ebra, your machine
exchanges routing information with other routers using routing protocols. Zebra uses this
information to update the kernel routing table so that the right data goes to the right place.
You can dynamically change the configuration and you may view routing table information
from the Zebra terminal interface.
Adding to routing protocol support, Zebra can setup interface’s flags, interface’s address,
static routes and so on. If you have a small network, or a stub network, or xDSL connection,
configuring the Zebra routing software is very easy. The only thing you have to do is to
set up the interfaces and put a few commands about static routes and/or default routes.
If the network is rather large, or if the network structure changes frequently, you will want
to take advantage of Zebra’s dynamic routing protocol support for protocols such as RIP,
OSPF or BGP. Zebra is with you.
Traditionally, UNIX based router configuration is done by ifconfig and route com-
mands. Status of routing table is displayed by netstat utility. Almost of these commands
work only if the user has root privileges. Zebra has a different system administration
method. There are two user modes in Zebra. One is normal mode, the other is enable
mode. Normal mode user can only view system status, enable mode user can change sys-
tem configuration. This UNIX account independent feature will be great help to the router
administrator.
Currently, Zebra supports common unicast routing protocols. Multicast routing proto-
cols such as B GMP, PIM-SM, PIM-DM will be supported in Zebra 2.0. MPLS support is
going on. In the future, TCP/IP filtering control, QoS control, diffserv configuration will
be added to Zebra. Zebra project’s final goal is making a productive, quality free TCP/IP
routing software.
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