From owner-freebsd-isp Fri Feb 13 07:53:01 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA11312 for freebsd-isp-outgoing; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 07:53:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from sabre.goldsword.com (sabre.goldsword.com [199.170.202.32]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id HAA11036 for ; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 07:50:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jfarmer@sabre.goldsword.com) Received: (from jfarmer@localhost) by sabre.goldsword.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA09287; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 10:41:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 10:41:54 -0500 (EST) From: "John T. Farmer" Message-Id: <199802131541.KAA09287@sabre.goldsword.com> To: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG, joe@thebestisp.com Subject: Re: Fw: FreeBSD firewall questions Cc: jfarmer@goldsword.com Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 00:12:08 -0600 "Joe" said: >OK... For starters I am not on this group to knock FreeBSD that would be >STUPID. I use FreeBSD and that is why I am on here. As for the hub things I >concead defeat and am going to try some more testing. The thing is that I >have 3com and SMC hubs here along with a few assorted others and have always >had them top out at about 6Mbps with every card I have tried (and yes the >cables are wired correctly) so at any rate I was not trying to start >anything and I sincerely thought that the information I was giving was >correct. Also several months ago I spoke with a "tech" at 3com about there >officeconnect 10Mbps hub and that is initialy where this theory (the 60%) >began for me. But while I am on this what is the "best" nic? No offense taken :^> Actually, after I went to bed, I realized that there is one mode in where a cross-over cable would increase performance. However, it is dependant on the capability of the two devices to "max-out" the number of packets/second & the packet sizes. Twisted-pair Ethernet was based on the physical configuration of 10base10 where the collision-detect & jabber circuity is located in the transceiver _at_the_baseband wire. (that's what the AUI port is for, cabling from device to transceiver). In twisted-pair, circuity for collision & jabber detect is _in_the_hub_, so in theory, the two devices with a crossover cable would never see collisions. This is how full-duplex is/was added easily to 10baseT, there are 2 channels between the device and the "collision domain or space." In the special case of a cross-over cable, the collision space collapses to null. In theory, the maximun throughput would then be limited only by the Ethernet specifications for packet size & the required inter-packet "gap." Note: this is only in theory, and in any case, the gain would be on the order of 0.001% Regarding your 6Mbps throughput, I would check into the packet sizes and what the actuall maximum throughput of the NICs you were using. (Note: I _have_ in the past been able pump 10Mbps through Ethernet using a dedicated PC (DOS & special s/w). As to your other questions, I like the Intel cards for FreeBSD systems. I've also used 3com 3C5xx cards in several types of systems with good success. John ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John T. Farmer Proprietor, GoldSword Systems jfarmer@goldsword.com Public Internet Access in East Tennessee dial-in (423)470-9953 for info, e-mail to info@goldsword.com Network Design, Internet Services & Servers, Consulting To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message