Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 20:09:01 -0400 From: Richard Costine <rjc@n2k.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Using FreeBSD as a router Message-ID: <34722E1D.751F5ECB@n2k.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> >From the ethernet side, does anybody know of a maximum number of PCI 10/100 > > network interfaces that FreeBSD could possibly support? I currently am using > > 3com 3c905 10/100 network cards. Therotically a single PCI bus could support > > multiple cards easily. > No problems from the FreeBSD side. It depends on if your PCI bus can > take that many busmastering devices. Agreed. The bus (speed and number of devices) is turning out to be the limiting factor for these pentia - we're migrating what hasn't been assimilated into the Microsoft collective to Sun UltraSparcs and E3000 class boxes just for that reason. Anyway, we have a FreeBSD router with three 100BaseTX ethernet cards on our inside net, and it works good. Then again, the nets that it connects to are nowhere near maxxed-out in terms of bandwidth. While it was putting the box together I wanted to see just how many ethernet cards I could get to work in one machine. I had some ISA 10BaseT cards laying around, so I threw two of them in and reconfigured the kernel. The fourth PCI slot was used for a SCSI card and the other ISA slot had a VGA card in it. I booted the machine and had a true, five-assed, FreeBSD router! I eventually removed the other two ISA cards when I placed the machine into production. In terms of reliability, I'd put it against any of the Netblazers that we used to have in here (those buggers would crash every couple of days, the FreeBSD box hasn't been rebooted in weeks), and would rank it slightly less reliable than a Cisco - only because the machine contains more moving parts (ie. disk to crash). As far as throughput, it ain't gonna be a Cisco, the current crop of Ciscos are using MIPS processors and have an IOS that's geared to pump packets. You'll have to do your own benchmarks, with your own environment. You may end up needing a small Cisco to actually do the job.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?34722E1D.751F5ECB>