[Xorp-hackers] Running FEA on a separate host

[Atanu Ghosh]

    Jim> Hi.  Is it possible to run FEA on a different host than the
    Jim> reset of the processes?

Yes.

    Jim> Is there a configuration file that tells the RIB how to
    Jim> communicate with a non-local FEA?

No.

We have just checked in some changes that should allow non local processes:

Lets call the host on which you want to run the fea "feahost" and the
host on which the rest of XORP is running "controlhost".

By default the XRL code listens on the loopback address. All the
processes will need to be started with the environment variable
XORP_FINDER_CLIENT_ADDRESS set to appropriate interface address.

Start the router manager with the -i flag, the address of the
interface facing "feahost" and the -a flag to allow the feahost to
communicate with the router manager.

controlhost# XORP_FINDER_CLIENT_ADDRESS=controlhost
controlhost# export XORP_FINDER_CLIENT_ADDRESS
controlhost# ./xorp_rtrmgr -i controlhost -a feahost

When you run the router manager it must start a fea process. Replace the
xorp_fea binary with a script that starts the remote fea. The fea will
need to know the host where the router manager is running, this
information can be provided with the -F flag.

----------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# 
ssh feahost XORP_FINDER_CLIENT_ADDRESS=feahost /usr/local/xorp/fea/xorp_fea -F controlhost
----------------------------------------

If you want you can start the fea manually, but you will need to start
the router manager within 10 seconds. Its important that the router
manager starts a binary that it believes is the fea. If you don't use
the script above replace xorp_fea with a program that doesn't exit.

I have used "main() { pause();}".

In my tests I started the remote fea manually.

	Atanu.