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Date:      Tue, 24 Jul 2001 16:13:25 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Chris Dillon <cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us>
To:        Chris Phillips <chris@selkie.org>
Cc:        Joe Clarke <marcus@marcuscom.com>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD Router
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.32.0107241524570.74713-100000@mail.wolves.k12.mo.us>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0107241031280.262-100000@shell.bchosting.com>

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On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Chris Phillips wrote:

> As mentioned, I use Intel EtherExpress Pro 10/100's exclusively on
> all network servers.  I don't imagine the NICs are a problem.
>
> Ideas?


The P166 you're using might be just a bit underpowered for three
100Mbit links and 250 ipfw rules.

I'm running 8 100Mbit full-duplex links (using fxp cards as well) with
66 static ipfw rules with an average additional 300 dynamic rules on a
PIII-800 Xeon.  Previously the exact same setup ran just fine on a
PIII-500.  This box has quite a few cycles to spare most of the time.
Just now, while doing an FTP of a large file from one box to another
on different networks, top reports 25% of the CPU used on the router
(about 20% for interrupts).  I averaged 11.22MBytes/sec for the file
transfer, which would equate to 90Mbit/sec just for the raw file, not
including any other overhead (TCP/IP, the Ethernet frames, etc.).
Just from a CPU usage perspective, assuming no other bottlenecks pop
up, I should be able to move about 400Mbit/sec between networks
(thinking in terms of switch backplane bandwidth... 100Mbits IN one
port and OUT another is 100Mbits, not 200Mbits).

So, to be able to move at least 100Mbit/sec across your router (in
one, out another) with about 250 ipfw rules, I'd guesstimate you would
need at least a Pentium 233 MMX.  Not that the MMX instructions help
any, just that the MMX Pentiums (P55C?) have a larger L1 cache than
previous Pentiums.  A non-MMX Pentium probably isn't available at
233MHz anyway.  :-)


-- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net
   FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet
   - Available for IA32 (Intel x86) and Alpha architectures
   - IA64 (Itanium), PowerPC, and ARM architectures under development
   - http://www.freebsd.org



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