From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 18 02:44:41 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 35D9D16A400 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:44:41 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dave@dogwood.com) Received: from ms-smtp-02-eri0.socal.rr.com (ms-smtp-02-qfe0.socal.rr.com [66.75.162.134]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D871243D45 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:44:40 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dave@dogwood.com) Received: from white.dogwood.com (white.dogwood.com [66.91.140.178]) by ms-smtp-02-eri0.socal.rr.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k3I2id7Y006047 for ; Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:44:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from white.dogwood.com (localhost.dogwood.com [127.0.0.1]) by white.dogwood.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k3I2icYJ076601 for ; Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:44:38 -1000 (HST) (envelope-from dave@white.dogwood.com) Received: (from dave@localhost) by white.dogwood.com (8.13.4/8.13.1/Submit) id k3I2icZj076600 for freebsd-net@freebsd.org; Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:44:38 -1000 (HST) (envelope-from dave) From: Dave Cornejo Message-Id: <200604180244.k3I2icZj076600@white.dogwood.com> To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:44:38 -1000 (HST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL121h (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (white.dogwood.com [127.0.0.1]); Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:44:38 -1000 (HST) X-Virus-Scanned: Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine Subject: crypto accelerators X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:44:41 -0000 I've read here before (or maybe some other freebsd list) that cards like the Soekris 1401 don't gain as much as you'd expect due to moving packets to/from the card over the PCI bus. But the context is usually one of trying to encrypt packets to increase throughput. So the question is whether these cards, regardless of their affect on throughput, increase usable CPU cycles? I have several Soekris 1401 cards and am wondering if there would be any point to putting them into some machines that provide logins over ssh. These machines are generally pretty good spec, 2.4GHz+, 1GB RAM, Intel MBs, mostly on-board peripherals. dave c