# What does CISCO use FreeBSD for?



## baronobeefdip (Feb 25, 2012)

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.


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 25, 2012)

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


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## throAU (Feb 25, 2012)

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.


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## _martin (Feb 25, 2012)

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


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## throAU (Feb 26, 2012)

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


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## m4rtin (Feb 29, 2012)

*FreeBSD used in Cisco*

[ 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/freebsd-at-cisco-21312


```
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?


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## SirDice (Feb 29, 2012)

matoatlantis said:
			
		

> 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


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## m4rtin (Feb 29, 2012)

throAU said:
			
		

> 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:


```
Incorporates Trend Microâ€™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?




			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> 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_?


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## SirDice (Mar 1, 2012)

m4rtin said:
			
		

> 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 :e

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


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## Terry_Kennedy (Mar 2, 2012)

SirDice said:
			
		

> 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.


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## boris_net (Mar 3, 2012)

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


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## tingo (Mar 3, 2012)

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.


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## phoenix (Mar 3, 2012)

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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