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Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 12:58:17 -0500
From: "Samuel D. Brown" <escher@ddyne.com>
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To: Mike Tancsa <mike@sentex.net>
CC: questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Building a multiport router out of FreeBSD
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Mike Tancsa wrote:

> Hi,
>         We are going to be upping our connection to the net to 5Mbps
> in the near
> future.  Our upstream provider is going to provide us with a managed
> CISCO
> that we will have no access to unfortunately.  Since we have fairly
> complex
> routing requirements, we need some sort of multi port router in the
> office.
> Considering I can build a Pentium 133 with a 4 Ethernet cards for
> around
> $1200 Canadian (~$800 USD), this is significantly cheaper and in some
> ways

    My experience with using FreeBSD as a dedicated router is that while
it works like a charm, is trouble free and easy to configure, there
remain human-noticable slow downs in transmission introduced by the box,
even at low loads.  If performance is important to you, and if you have
the money to spare, going with a hardware dedicated routing product will
give you distinctly better performance.
        S.