Zebra is a

routing Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched telephone netw ...

software package that provides

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

based routing services with

routing protocols A routing protocol specifies how routers communicate with each other to distribute information that enables them to select routes between nodes on a computer network. Routers perform the traffic directing functions on the Internet; data packets ...

support such as

RIP Rest in peace (RIP), a phrase from the Latin (), is sometimes used in traditional Christian services and prayers, such as in the Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist denominations, to wish the soul of a decedent eternal rest and peace. ...

OSPF Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a routing protocol for Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It uses a link state routing (LSR) algorithm and falls into the group of interior gateway protocols (IGPs), operating within a single autonomous sys ...

and

BGP Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector routing protocol, and it mak ...

. Zebra also supports special BGP Route Reflector and

Route Server A route server is a computer server that was originally developed by the Routing Arbiter project, with funding from the National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States governme ...

behavior. In addition to traditional

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version de ...

routing protocols, Zebra also supports

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...

routing protocols. With

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet Standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behaviour. Devices that typically ...

daemon which supports SMUX protocol, Zebra provides routing protocol

management information base A management information base (MIB) is a database used for managing the entities in a communication network. Most often associated with the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the term is also used more generically in contexts such as in ...

s. Zebra uses an advanced software architecture to provide a high quality, multi server routing engine. Zebra has an interactive user interface for each routing protocol and supports common client commands. Due to this design, new protocol daemons can be easily added. Zebra library can also be used as a program's client user interface. Zebra is distributed under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

Background

The idea for Zebra originally came from Kunihiro Ishiguro, after he realized the need for quality routing software. While working at an

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between

British Telecom BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...

and

Marubeni (, OSE: 8002, NSE: 8002) is a ''sōgō shōsha'' (general trading company) headquartered in Nihonbashi, Chuo, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the largest ''sogo shosha'' and has leading market shares in cereal and paper pulp trading as well as a st ...

, Ishiguro encountered

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

Yoshinari Yoshikawa. Yoshinari Yoshikawa shared Ishiguro's vision for a new routing engine and they combined resources to create the world's first routing engine software. The resulting entity, known as the Zebra Project, was started in 1996.

Present

Ishiguro and Yoshikawa lead the IP Infusion company and market a commercial version of Zebra, known as "ZebOS". This ZebOS is being used in networking products, such as FortiOS and the Citrix NetScaler. Citrix, "The NetScaler routing suite is based on ZebOS, the commercial version of GNU Zebra.", http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/ns-system-10-map/ns-nw-iprouting-config-dyna-rout-con.html

Future

The official website states that "Zebra has been decommissioned". Since its last release (version 0.95) in 2005-09-08, development of Zebra appears to have stopped. A new project has emerged as the unofficial successor of Zebra:

Quagga The quagga ( or ) (''Equus quagga quagga'') is a subspecies of the plains zebra that was endemic to South Africa until it was hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but early genetic ...

. Worldwide, many

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

based BGP-routers which were using Zebra are switching to Quagga.

References

External links

Official website
* {{GNU Free routing software

Zebra Zebras (, ) (subgenus ''Hippotigris'') are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: the Grévy's zebra (''Equus grevyi''), plains zebra (''E. quagga''), and the mountain zebra (''E. zeb ...

Background

Present

Future

See also

References

External links