[Xorp-hackers] Rewrite of rtrmgr and xorpsh

[Kristian Larsson]

On Sun, Nov 19, 2006 at 01:08:11PM +0200, Hasso Tepper wrote:
> Kristian Larsson wrote:
> > interface fxp0 {
> > 	vif fxp0 {
> > 		disable;
> > 	}
> > }
> >
> > instead of disable = true/false.
> 
> Idea itself is good of course, but example is bad. There is much cleaner 
> and better way to implement the disable feature - "deactivate" keyword is 
> the key. Without clutter of CLI, without any support from protocol 
> modules etc. you will get this functionality automatically for every 
> node - for multinodes and leaf nodes as well.
You're right and I've already added this to the
BugZilla a long time ago (#331). And as you know,
I wasn't trying to show how the disable keyword
should work but rather point out that there should
be "leaf nodes without values".

> Anyway, I took some time and wrote down my thoughts regarding XORP you 
> (all readers of the list) may find interesting - it covers this as well.
> 
> http://hasso.linux.ee/doku.php/english:network:xorpsucks
Interesting read. As I wouldn't dare call myself
a developer I haven't looked at XORP from that
perspective. Reading your paper however, I realize
you pinpoint the faults that I just couldn't quite
get a grip on.
Leafnodes without value being just one example.

I find XORP terrible to work with, there are not a
lot of "show" commands and those available
generally lack in information or formatting (see
the BGP show command improvement bug #217 for an
example).
You're job overloading route and a few other
commands improved a lot but there's still plenty
left.

I've been looking forward to the coding of the
IS-IS module in XORP, but I've realized that I
don't even use the BGP part because I think the
policy language is just horrible and so I would
probably end up not using the ISIS part either.

You're probably right in that XORP needs to revamp
it's core so that more external developers will
help out doing those small improvements that XORP
needs to become that nice routing suite we all want.

   Kristian.

-- 
Kristian Larsson                                   KLL-RIPE
Network Engineer                      Net at Once [AS35706]
+46 704 910401			     kristian at spritelink.se