What does CISCO use FreeBSD for?

baronobeefdip · #1 February 25th, 2012, 03:21

I was reading the introduction of the handbook a few days ago and noticed on the list of companies and individuals that use FreeBSD, I saw CISCO. I am taking CCENT and CCNA classes in college and I was never made aware of this interesting fact. So what does CISCO use FreeBSD for? Is it used as the operating systems in their switches, Routers and Firewalls or is it something else.

drhowarddrfine · #2 February 25th, 2012, 04:06

It's used internally at least according to this post by Dru in 2007.

throAU · #3 February 25th, 2012, 11:44

It would not surprise me if they use it in the CSC module for their ASA firewalls, and possibly other content filter modules, etc in their 6500 series switches.

I know for a fact they're some sort of unix box on a card, but I'm not sure if it is linux or FreeBSD. I suppose FreeBSD has the more suitable license, so it would not surprise me that it is used there.

Hell, given the ASA is basically a PC in a fancy case with an IOS-ish command line, they may well be using it for the ASA operating system these days.

matoatlantis · #4 February 25th, 2012, 18:45

CISCO named its OS Cisco IOS. It's based on unix-like OS - QNX.

throAU · #5 February 26th, 2012, 10:42

Yeah that's nice. The ASA doesn't run the regular IOS though, neither do the CSC modules.

m4rtin · #6 February 29th, 2012, 01:13

[ similar thread merged in. -- Mod. ]

According to FreeBSD handbook Cisco uses FreeBSD in their products. In addition, there is a blog post which describes Cisco job advertisement for "FreeBSD ports/package maintainer":

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/bsd-guru...at-cisco-21312

Code:

Cisco's Open Platform Software Technology Center is looking to a
maintainer for the userland packages of our internal FreeBSD distribution.

The next generation of Cisco's products will be powered by Open Source
operating systems and will be built from Open Source components. Our
team will build the core technology used in a wide variety of Cisco
products.

The ideal candidate has strong C programming skills, and is an
active contributor to the FreeBSD or other open source community.
Experience building and maintaining Linux or FreeBSD distributions is
a plus. Experience with network protocols and network devices is
also a plus.

Any ideas what product this might be where Cisco uses FreeBSD?

**SirDice** · #7 February 29th, 2012, 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by matoatlantis

CISCO named its OS Cisco IOS. It's based on unix-like OS - QNX.

Only IOS-XR if I'm not mistaken. Other IOS versions have used FreeBSD 2.2 as their basis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS-XR

m4rtin · #8 March 1st, 2012, 00:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by throAU

It would not surprise me if they use it in the CSC module for their ASA firewalls, and possibly other content filter modules, etc in their 6500 series switches.

Cisco ASA Control Security Services Module should run Trend Micro AV:

Code:

Incorporates Trend Micro’s award-winning antivirus
and anti-spyware technologies. The CSC-SSM can prevent virtually all known malicious code from entering and propagating across the network.

Maybe it runs Linux because Trend Micro has already AV products for Linux?

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirDice

Only IOS-XR if I'm not mistaken. Other IOS versions have used FreeBSD 2.2 as their basis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS-XR

How do you know that IOS (used in most lower-end and mid-range Cisco routers and Catalyst series switches) is based on FreeBSD 2.2?

**SirDice** · #9 March 1st, 2012, 08:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by m4rtin

How do you know that IOS (used in most lower-end and mid-range Cisco routers and Catalyst series switches) is based on FreeBSD 2.2?

Experience

If you look at a Cisco booting you'll see the similarities. I'm not sure it was actually 2.2 they based it on but it seems logical. That was the first version that had all the AT&T owned code removed. And, again if I'm not mistaken, a few other companies used that version as their base too.

I'm sure IOS changed so much over the years I doubt there's anything left of the original code

Terry_Kennedy · #10 March 2nd, 2012, 03:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirDice

If you look at a Cisco booting you'll see the similarities. I'm not sure it was actually 2.2 they based it on but it seems logical. That was the first version that had all the AT&T owned code removed.

Cisco IOS 9 was released in December 1992 (reference), at which time there wasn't even a FreeBSD, as 386BSD had just split from CSRG that same month (reference).

Cisco was using 68000 processors (reference) which wasn't even a target platform for the free BSDs (note - "free BSDs", not "FreeBSD"). It could have had some CSRG code, since SunOS was BSD-based on 68K's in the early days.

boris_net · #11 March 3rd, 2012, 19:16

FreeBSD is used by Cisco for this product:

Cisco Ironport

Company was acquired by Cisco in 2007 more details HERE

There is no link to FreeBSD in IOS, IOS-XR (which has the QNX microkernel), NX-OS or IOS-XE. Actually the last two are based on Linux kernel.

Juniper has based his OS on FreeBSD, their route processor (aka Routing Engine) is basically a PC and it is easy to find tutorial on the web to run JunOS version as a FreeBSD package with qemu...

Good luck for your CCENT and CCNA !

Boris - cisco employee

tingo · #12 March 3rd, 2012, 20:48

FWIW, I seem to recall that the old Nokia firewalls (IPSO) also did run FreeBSD (or something derived from FreeBSD). Not that it has anything to do with Cisco.

**phoenix** · #13 March 3rd, 2012, 21:42

Yes, (some of) the Nokia firewalls use FreeBSD, and IPFW as the packet filter, behind a very pretty (and expensive) GUI.

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