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by blutack 330 days ago
RevK's blog has a lot of interesting posts on it.

https://www.revk.uk/

He also runs an excellent ISP in the UK called AAISP which I can highly recommend (https://www.aa.net.uk)

AAISP build their own core & customer networking devices/routers from scratch (not Linux based) in the UK. They are fascinating to use - a completely different evolutionary tree to any other networking kit I've used. Some unique features.

https://www.firebrick.co.uk/fb9000/
1 comments
MaKey 330 days ago
> AAISP build their own core & customer networking devices/routers from scratch (not Linux based) in the UK.

Which kernel are they using?

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EvanAnderson 330 days ago
Their site says:

- Every line of code in the firmware, including building an operating system from the ground up with device drivers and IP stack.

- The FireBrick's hardware platform is not used in any other devices and the FireBrick's codebase / firmware is not used in any other hardware.

Given the feature set I'm a little dubious that it's all in-house. There are a ton of man-years of code in there.

It would be interesting to know the history of the software.

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masfuerte 330 days ago
This blog post has a few hints [1]. Apparently they had to rewrite a load of code when they moved to a multicore processor, so it definitely seems to be in-house software.

[1]: https://www.firebrick.co.uk/about/news/version-20/

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EvanAnderson 330 days ago
Thanks for that link.

It's absolutely wild to think about a suite of software this sophisticated that exists outside the realm of Unix, Windows, or any of the long-term players in the embedded networking device market. I know there are boutique embedded IP stacks out there but it still boggles my mind that a small company like this has had sufficient revenue to keep up with the "churn" in the networking space for 20+ years w/o leaning on free/open-source software.

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EvanAnderson 329 days ago
Piling-on to my own comment: Searching the site https://www.revk.uk for the keyword "firebrick" returns a ton of results detailing the development. It looks like it's exactly what it says on the tin-- a proprietary operating system with its own implementations of a ton of protocols.

I wish I had a reason to interview RevK about the Firebrick code. I think it would be an immensely interesting topic.

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