Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 15:58:07 -0700 From: David Greenman <davidg@Root.COM> To: Network Coordinator <nc@ai.net> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD as a router Message-ID: <199506242258.PAA00155@corbin.Root.COM> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 24 Jun 95 17:58:20 EDT." <Pine.BSF.3.91.950624175559.2636A-100000@aries.ai.net>
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>> >> Last time I used pc-route, it crashed every 5-30 minutes. It's performance >> wasn't so hot, either. I haven't looked at it in a year or so, so perhaps the >> code has been improved. The main things that stick in my memory are that it was >> a black box, difficult to configure, impossible to troubleshoot, and had a >> broken RIP implementation. >> > >I wasn't suggesting either using pc-route code or using pc-route as a >modern-day router [I don't even know if its being maintained]. I was just >curious how it would run on faster equipment for a theoretical max, all >the benchmarks I have seen on it talks about turning an 8088-0 into a >router, not a P90. I figured that pc-route whether reliable or not >addresses as many of the software issues in terms of overhead that can >be, cleanly. This is of course assuming that someone can get it to run >long enough to do a benchmark on it. :) Right, but try to read behind what I'm saying: BSD routers *do* have the advantage of providing high-level statistics and utilities that can be used to troubleshoot problems (at the router) that a program like pc-route currently does not have. pc-route only handles the lowly RIP routing protocol, mostly because complex routing protocols are beyond the scope of such a simple routing solution. ...and like I said, despite the hipe, I found pc-route to be rather aweful in terms of performance (I was using it with a 386 at the time). For one thing, it's a 16bit program. I also am pretty sure that it has *no* PCI support (it didn't when I messed with it). I understand your point - that perhaps pc-route could be used as some sort of best-case of which to compare to. My point is that I already know that PC (PCI) hardware is capable of moving packets at full speed. Hopefully when some of us gets some time, we'll look into improving the bootlenecks. I'm actually surprised to hear Rod's 400KB/sec benchmark. I was getting better than that a year ago with a pair of 486/33 boxes w/ISA ethernet cards. If that's all we can do these days with Pentiums and PCI, then something is very wrong. -DG
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