From the course: Practical Linux for Network Engineers: Part 1

Linux network operating systems (NOS) - Linux Tutorial

From the course: Practical Linux for Network Engineers: Part 1

Linux network operating systems (NOS)

(pop electronica music) - [Instructor] You, as a network engineer, need to learn Linux. (pop electronica music) Packet Pushers have a nice reference of network operating systems, and if I search for Linux here, notice we see Cumulus Linux, which is a Debian based Linux distribution. So this is one of many network operating systems. Big Switch is also built on Linux. So is Open Network Linux, which is a Linux distribution for bare metal switches. This is part of the Open Compute Project. One of the most famous members of the Open Compute Project is Facebook, which now have made open source their hardware designs for their switches. So you've got not only open source software such as Linux, but open source hardware. So you can now buy a Facebook switch. You can either build this yourself or get it from a company such as Cumulus. So Cumulus sells fixtures from companies such as Dell, EdgeCore, and HPE, but also sell Facebook switches, such as the Wedge-100 and the Backpack, which I've just shown you. PICA8, also allow you to access a Linux shell. So there are many Linux type operating systems, even from companies such as Cisco. So as an example, Cisco IOS-XE. The underlying operating system is Linux, but you don't have access to that. Nexus-OS is a highly customized version of Linux as the base operating system. IOS-XR uses a Linux kernel. So as you can see, many companies use Linux in their network operating systems. Even companies such as Microsoft have a Linux-based network operating system. There's SONiC, or Software for Open Networking in the Cloud, is based on Linux. Microsoft now love Linux. So there are many network operating systems from multiple vendors, including Cisco, that allow you to access the underlying Linux operating system. Some operating systems, such as Cisco XE, don't allow you to access the underlying Linus operating system, but are based on Linux. It's well worth your time as a network engineer learning Linux today, and one of the big reasons is a lot of network operating systems are either based on Linux, or run on top of Linux. Another reason, once again, is the Open Compute Project, has a lot of members including Facebook, and their switches run on Linux. Most white box switches run Linux. It's an open source operating system, so companies such as SnapRoute, OpenLinux, And operating systems such as OpenSwitch, Cumulus Linux, Pica8, and others run Linux as the operating system. Another reason a network engineer needs to learn Linux is that you're most likely gonna run the Ansible control mode on a Linux PC. Notice the control machine requirements for Ansible are any machine with Python 2.6 or 2.7 installed, but Windows isn't supported for the control mode. You can't run the Ansible control mode on a Windows PC. You're not gonna run Ansible directly on your network devices; you're gonna run it on a Linux VM or docker container and use that to pragmatically configure your network devices. My advice to you is, as a network engineer, learn Linux today.

Contents