Researchers at ICSI release XORP open source router software

September 15, 2004

ICSI's eXtensible Open Router Platform (XORP) has released its open source router software. XORP differs from commercially available routers in several aspects, which are designed to make it more user-friendly, adaptable, and stable.

XORP is designed for extensibility, so that it can simultaneously satisfy several user groups: network researchers needing a platform for experimentation, network operators needing a low-cost stable routing platform on commodity hardware, network equipment vendors with special purpose hardware, and network application writers looking for an open platform to support their applications. XORP is ideal for experimentation, and has the ability to 'understand' scripting in practically any language, which allows a user to come up with new routing applications using existing code. In addition, the XORP architecture is compartmentalized so that should something go wrong in one area, the other areas are not compromised. This offers more security than alternative router platforms.

Creators of XORP hope that it will one day become an attractive alternative to commercial stacks for network equipment vendors. XORP is licensed under a BSD-style license, which allows the user to use it for any non-commercial purpose. The XORP development team believes that many users will contribute changes and improvements to XORP much like Linux users. Additionally, they envision a new class of software that doesn't currently exist: the router application. They believe that XORP's extensible architecture is the means to create third party software for mainstream commercial router platforms. The possibility for novel network functionality that this would enable is a long-term goal that XORP developers hope to explore in the future.

XORP Homepage

top