The main objective of [RARE / FreeRouter 101] series is to help you getting started with FreeRouter from scratch without any prior knowledge.

Requirement

Basic Linux/Unix knowledge
Basic networking knowledge

Overview

freeRouter is a free, open source router control plane software. For nostalgic and old networkers (like me), freeRouter is able to handle HDLC, X25, frame-relay, ATM encapsulation.

Since it handles packets itself at the socket layer, it is independent of underlying Operation System capabilities.

We will see in the next articles how freeRouter subtlety leverage this inherently independence to connect different data-plane such as OpenFlow, P4 and other possible data-plane that would appear in the near future.

The command line tries to mimic the industry standards with one exception:

no global routing table: every routed interface must be in a virtual routing table
positive side effect: there are no vrf-awareness questions

Article objective

This article is meant to simply deploy 2 instances of freeRouter on the same fresh linux installed linux box.

We are voluntary using freeRouter (freerouter.nop.hu) "raw" official repository in order to get familiar with the deployment manual process.

Even if the deployment process is straightforward, it is not self explanatory for people non familiar with java/linux.

In order to simplify the deployment we have deployed a daily built:

But let's get our "hand dirty" and follow the simple manual installation.

Diagram

Cookbook #001

Install your favorite operating system

In our example we will use a genuine debian stable image (buster) installed as a VirtualBox VM.

Get your system up to date

Start & connect your VM as root
Update your VM

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Install operating system default java package

apt-get install default-jre-headless

Install operating system java package

In this example, we won't recompile freeRouter so installing headless java runtime is enough. This set up is recommended for production environment in order to ensure minimal software footprint

apt-get install default-jre-headless --no-install-recommends

Create freeRouter environment

Let's create the following structure, even if some folder are empty for now:

mkdir -p ~/freeRouter/bin ~/freeRouter/lib ~/freeRouter/etc ~/freeRouter/log
cd ~/freeRouter/lib
wget http://freerouter.nop.hu/rtr.jar

so you have have the following environment:

╭─[11:11:54]floui@debian ~ 
╰─➤ tree freeRouter
freeRouter
├── bin   # binary files      
├── etc   # configuration files      
├── lib   # library files      
└── log   # log files

Create freeRouter configuration files for router: R1

FreeRouter uses 2 configuration files in order to run, let's write these configuration files for R1 in ~/freeRouter/etc

freeRouter hardware file: ${ROUTER_NAME}-hw.txt

int eth1 eth 0000.1111.0001 127.0.0.1 26011 127.0.0.1 26021
tcp2vrf 1123 v1 23

freeRouter software configuration file: ${ROUTER_NAME}-sw.txt

hostname r1
!
vrf definition v1
 exit
!
int eth1
desc r1@e1 -> r2@e1
vrf forwarding v1
 ipv4 address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.252
 ipv6 address 1234::1 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff::
 exit
!
server telnet tel
 security protocol telnet
 no exec authorization
 no login authentication
 vrf v1
 exit
!

Create freeRouter configuration files for router: R2

Repeat the same configuration for R2 in ~/freeRouter/etc