Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 14 Nov 1995 05:28:43 +0800 (WST)
From:      Peter Wemm <peter@jhome.DIALix.COM>
To:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   if_mux hack?
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.951114051809.243F-100000@jhome.DIALix.COM>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I saw something in Lin*x that got me thinking....

How does this sound for a crude hack to get multiple slip/ppp/hdlc links 
working in a load-sharing arrangement:

Create a stub if_mux that only accepts packets from IP, and 
redistributes them to other interfaces that it's been told about below 
it.  Ie: it's if_output routine would take the packets and distribute 
them to other interface's if_output routines below it.

Incoming packets from the lower interfaces would still go direct to IP, 
but that's no big deal.

The basic result is that you would have cheap, simple aggregation of 
point-to-point links.  ie: two 28.8K modems in parallel, you can have 
your route to the other end pointing to "mux0", and be able to send 
packets interleaved over both modems for nearly double the throughput.

This is something like what Cisco's can do with load balancing.. (They do 
far more I know, but we talk to a Cisco over ppp this way at the moment, 
and it's an asymmetric link because we can't distribute packets to two 
interfaces.)

Sound interesting?  Is it a "worthy hack"?  (especially since Linux has 
something like it.. :-)

Cheers,
-Peter



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.3.91.951114051809.243F-100000>