From owner-freebsd-isp Sun Jan 11 04:47:56 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA20017 for isp-outgoing; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 04:47:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-isp) Received: from chico.franken.de (root@dns.franken.de [193.175.24.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA19998 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 04:47:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mnbokaem@pizza.franken.de) Received: by chico.franken.de via sendmail with stdio id for freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:47:39 +0100 (MET) (Smail-3.2 1996-Jul-4 #2 built DST-Sep-8) Received: from pizza.franken.de(193.174.2.225) via SMTP by chico, id smtpd017626; Sun Jan 11 13:47:32 1998 Received: by pizza.franken.de (/\==/\ Smail3.1.28.1 #28.4) id ; Sun, 11 Jan 98 13:43 MET Received: by olive.franken.de (Smail3.1.29.1 #7) id m0xrMgF-0004pYC; Sun, 11 Jan 98 13:39 MET Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2) In-Reply-To: <34B86D45.643D@comsys.com> X-Nextstep-Mailer: Mail 3.3 (Enhance 2.0b6) Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.118.2) From: Martin Bokaemper Date: Sun, 11 Jan 98 13:39:51 +0100 To: alex@comsys.com Subject: Re: multi-port Ethernet cards ?? Anyone have them or want to develop them? cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG References: <34B86D45.643D@comsys.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi. > We're again looking at the requirements for a ISP box that > has 8 Ethernet ports. We'd like to run FreeBSD in the box, prefer > Intel or Digital 10/100 Mbit Ethernet controllers - 4 per board > would be good. Priced around $300 each. > > If there's someone interested in developing such a card we'd can > participate. Please contact me directly. > > If there's something out there already that fits the bill, > we'd buy rather than build. There are 4-port Ethernet Controllers available. We have one in use from Cogent (now: Adaptec). They have a family of 4 port PCI-cards that all use the DECchip controllers. We use the 4x BNC (10Mbps) model but you can get up to 4x 100Mbps fullduplex. The card currently runs in a linux box but I had it on FreeBSD too and it works fine. I don't know current prices. Look at Potential Problems: - The board uses a PCI Bridge. Older BIOS versions often do not initialize these chips properly. - Two cards _should_ be no problem, but you can only be sure about that after a test (another field for BIOS or PCI-Driver bugs). - The controllers are longer than typical PCI-Boards - many Mainboards have the CPU or SIMMs in the back of the PCI-Slots so you can't plug in two long cards. ciao, Martin. --