which cisco router

Here's some advice that will save you some money, along with giving you more than what you want.

Do a search on google for Dynamips and Dynagen. Download Dynagen as it comes with Dynamips anyway. Dynamips is a Cisco 7200 Emulator that runs real Cisco IOS's, so you need one of these IOS's too. If you can't get your hands on an image from a 7200, download a piece of software called IOS hunter - this will allow you to get an image for a 7200.

You can put together excellent labs with this emulator. It truly is the best thing out there.

Regards

James

Rob wrote:

James,

I agree that Dynamips and Dynagen are absolutely superb, however, I have the idea that ipsec over them might be a bit of a problem.

I have only used Dynamips on Windows with cygwin and the performance in terms of packet forwarding rate is terrible, maybe IPSEC is just a bit too far? I do though wonder what the performance difference might be on native Linux vs Cygwin.

I could get about 4 or 6 7200s on about the best PC money can buy. (Well [roughly] HP wx6200 dual CPU [4 virtual CPU],

For most router work it is just fine but not having tried IPSEC I have the idea that it may be just too much for it.

To the OP. Avoid 2500 for IPSEC. 2600 is better..

I have now re-read the original post and it is somewhat contradictory.

Well which is it - Security certification or a bit of general cisco this and that? If the latter Dynamips is the job.

Maybe it does IPSEC OK too???