OpenBSD routing mini hackathon

contributions to various hackathons

The OpenBSD project produces a free, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. OpenBSD is developed by volunteers. To accelerate the development process mini hackathons are organised for a specific task, with just specific people.

Over the last few years the OpenBSD project has created two more sub-projects: OpenBGPD and OpenOSPFD -- two secure and efficient routing daemons for the BGP and OSPF protocol. Major network infrastructure providers most notably the internet exchanges TIX, DeCIX and AMS-IX are switching to or evaluating OpenBGPD as a replacement for their route-servers. Many ISPs are using OpenBGPD and OpenOSPFD in their core network and are impressed by the performance and stability.

This mini hackathon will concentrate on better routing support. The capabilities of the routing daemons are more and more limited by the kernel support. The BSD network stack is still mostly based on 4.4BSD and lacks some important features. Two missing features are policy and multi-path routing. Additionally the lack of in-kernel support for the administrative distance of routes makes the integration of routing daemons unnecessary hard. The challange is to integrate these features into the kernel without breaking existing behaviour.

This mini hackathon allows us to do research at large which is almost impossible to do without such a meeting. The core network developer from FreeBSD will attend the mini-hackathon as well. Instead of developing two incompatible interface the projects will join forces and create something for the next decade.