Even the most experienced network administrator can get stumped when configuring Linux routers, says Tony Mancill, author of Linux Routers: A Primer for Network Administrators, 2nd Ed. from Prentice Hall PTR. There are significant differences in the configuration processes for Linux, Windows and Unix. In a recent interview with SearchEnterpriseLinux.com, he described the most important "dos and don'ts" for configuring Linux routers.

Don't speak Windows-ese to a Linux router.

There's not one right way to configure routers on all platforms. Most Linux routers are configured differently than their traditional counterparts, Mancill said. Besides that, networking and routing configurations differ from one Linux distribution to the other.

For example, there may be multiple mechanisms for saving the configuration for each of the various subsystems, depending upon the various components used, Mancill said. One configuration could control the WAN interfaces, while another controls static routes, and yet another handles firewall rules.

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