From owner-freebsd-hardware Fri Jul 31 05:13:58 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA16483 for freebsd-hardware-outgoing; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 05:13:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from animaniacs.itribe.net (gatekeeper.itribe.net [209.49.144.254]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id FAA16478 for ; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 05:13:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jamie@itribe.net) Received: from localhost (jamie@localhost) by animaniacs.itribe.net (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) via SMTP id IAA03921; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:13:36 -0400 Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:13:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Jamie Bowden To: "C. Stephen Gunn" cc: Richard Archer , freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Support for passive backplane chassis? In-Reply-To: <199807310551.AAA13188@tsunami.waterspout.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri, 31 Jul 1998, C. Stephen Gunn wrote: > In message , Richard Archer writes: > > >I am thinking of using a passive backplane system with 16 PCI slots. > >This would allow each router to handle up to 64 ethernet segments. > >But I can't find much information about how these interact with FreeBSD. > > Richard, > > This would scare the heck out of me. I use a FreeBSD box at my > day job to route between 5 Ethernet Interfaces. While it's a fast > box, and it all works fine, I don't want to think about the bandwidth > aggregation problems you might have with 64 ethernet cards on one > machine. At that level you're not looking for a CPU to make decisions > on the packets. You want a Switch. > > I would check out Lucent's Cajun Switch, or some of the nicer Cisco > 10/100 switches that can take a route processor. The Lucent one claims > to be 10/100 on lots of ports (140 or so) and provide Layer-3 switching > (basically routing) in hardware, at wire speed. While you're looking > at $25K or so, racks of BSD machines aren't free either. > > Don't get me wrong here, FreeBSD is great, but PCI isn't going to > handle what you want. At least not at high saturation levels for > each subnet. Just wondering, how does this building hook to the rest > of the universe? I have a baynetworks accelar switch that was built just for this kind of nightmare...little pricey, but worth it. -- Jamie Bowden Systems Administrator, iTRiBE.net If we've got to fight over grep, sign me up. But boggle can go. -Ted Faber (on Hasbro's request for removal of /usr/games/boggle) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message