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	Sat, 10 Jan 1998 17:31:23 GMT
From: efinley@castlenet.com (Elliot Finley)
To: jak@cetlink.net (John Kelly)
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Q: which ppp to use?
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 00:28:34 GMT
Organization: Hiawatha Coal Company
Reply-To: efinley@castlenet.com
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On Sat, 10 Jan 1998 20:11:28 GMT, you wrote:

>On Sat, 10 Jan 1998 18:58:08 GMT, efinley@castlenet.com (Elliot
>Finley) wrote:
>
>>>>If I plan on having up to 200 simultaneous ppp dialins on a single
>>>>box, which ppp would be better? pppd or user ppp?
>>>
>>>Neither one, because that airplane will not fly.
>>>
>>>32 ports per box, or perhaps 64 with the right stuff, hardware wise.
>>>You will need more than one box.
>>>
>>
>>What is the limiting factor?  Memory? Cpu power? what?
>>
>>My box is a Pentium II 233, with 64MB ram....  How much processing
>>power and memory does a portmaster have?  If I need more memory I'll
>>just put more memory in it...  So what IS the limiting factor?
>
>I/O "bandwidth."  The PC architecture was not designed for the I/O
>bandwidth needed to handle 200 loaded ports.  But if you want to see
>how high you can go, I would like to hear your report.
>

Well, I'm going to go for it....  If you have 200 Ports, and if ALL of
them are running at a steady 33.6Kbps, and you figure that the data
has to go across the bus twice.  Once from the ports into memory
space, and once from memory space out to the net.  You're still only
looking at just under 2MB/Sec going across your bus...  I don't see
I/O bandwidth as being a problem...