nanog mailing list archives
Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test
From: Jim Shankland <jas () flyingfox com>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:06:43 -0800 (PST)
Znyx (www.znyx.com) and Adaptec both make quad cards based on the DEC Tulip chip. I think Intel has a dual 82558 card. Expect to pay a substantial premium over the per-interface cost of single cards. You have to weigh that against the convenience/efficiency/etc. of getting all those ports into one box. Can't say whether these will work with Linux. I use FreeBSD. I have one box (a Pentium 133, if I recall correctly) with 14 Ethernet interfaces: 3 quad cards, 1 single, and an ISA NE-2000 clone on a particularly lightly used network. Works fine. The limiting factor ends up being PCI bus bandwidth. You'll be hard pressed to squeeze more than 100-150 Mb/s of total throughput out of the router, since every bit takes two trips across the PCI bus: from the device to main memory, and back. If you can figure out how to diddle IP headers while the packet is in the card's buffers, and then do a card-to-card PCI transfer (i.e., without going to main memory), you can probably do a bit better. I haven't tried this, so consider it a hypothesis. Jim Shankland Flying Fox Computer Systems, Inc.
Current thread:
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test, (continued)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test William F. Maton (Oct 27)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) Nathan Stratton (Oct 27)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) Michael Shields (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) Studded (Oct 29)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) Joe Shaw (Oct 29)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) Richard Irving (Oct 29)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) Zach Brown (Oct 29)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) Michael Shields (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test Phil Howard (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test David G Andersen (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test Jim Shankland (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test David Lesher / hated by RBOC's in 5 states (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test Eric Germann (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test Dan Hollis (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test Roeland M.J. Meyer (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test Dan Hollis (Oct 28)
- RE: Linux router (don't laugh) WAS:Re: test James D. Wilson (Oct 28)
- Linux Router KIT dirk (Oct 28)
- RE: Linux Router KIT jtownsend (Oct 28)
- Re: Linux Router KIT dirk (Oct 28)