Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 10:30:01 -0600 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Clark Joel A1C AMC CSS <Joel.Clark@scott.af.mil> Cc: "'bmah@CA.Sandia.GOV'" <bmah@CA.Sandia.GOV>, "'net@freebsd.org'" <net@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Routers and such Message-ID: <3756AD89.CC656884@softweyr.com> References: <CDC9D3D7F1E4D111A6350000BC116EFE011442C3@scoisnte83.scott.af.mil>
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Clark Joel A1C AMC CSS wrote:
> Bruce Mah wrote:
> > Wes Peters wrote:
> > > A router is necessary when the machine you're using becomes to slow
> > > to handle the load. There's no reason why you can't just grab another
> > > FreeBSD machine and build a router on it. Even a P100 can easily keep
> > > up with DSL, Cable Modem, or T1 speeds. ISDN or analog modems are no
> > > problem, as long as you get good serial ports.
> >
> > That's true for one particular environment (small network attached to a
> > consumer ISP, where everything goes through a single gateway).
> >
> > When I first read this question, however, I thought, "When you can't put
> > all your hosts on a single subnet and you need to build an
> > internetwork." I'm thinking of a campus network setting, and it's not
> > clear to me which environment the original question was addressing.
Joel, please place your reply at the bottom and don't lose the quotations
on the messages you're replying to, it makes it difficult to follow the
conversation. I know you're crippled with a Microsnot mailer, but neatness
counts.
> Right now it is only one subnet, fed from an 56Kbps ISP connection.
>
> But if I understand you correctly, I WILL need one if I need to bring up
> another subnet. And if so, I assume routed will suffice for low-bandwidth
> applications?
Most of the routers in this world are based on the Berkeley TCP/IP
stack, and on routing software that runs on BSD. If you manage to
surpass the capabilities of a FreeBSD-based router, you don't need
a router, you need a switch. ;^)
Routing between two, three, or even four 100base-TX networks and an
internet connection is something that a reasonably good FreeBSD box
is very capable of. You will want to pay attention to network
design, avoiding making the router a bottleneck, but you would want
to do that with a commercial router also. If you have a busy server
that needs access to two or more of the internal networks, give it
an interface on each of the networks instead of running traffic
bound for the server through the router.
If you have multiple EXTERNAL network connections, you will need a
somewhat more sophisticated routing setup. Gated, included with
FreeBSD, is the tool you use to solve this problem. FreeBSD is as
capable as any router of handling multiple-path routing. You will
need to learn a lot about routing to use it effectively, but the
same is true for any commercial router or routing switch.
Rest assured that FreeBSD will handle your needs for some time to
come.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com
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