Dragonfly Routers

[Dave Hayes]

Bill Hacker <wbh at conducive.org> writes:
> Dave Hayes wrote:
>> Has anyone here tried to use DragonFly BSD as a router where the box had
>> more than 4 network interfaces? I'm wondering if too many network
>> interfaces on one machine would have performance issues?
>
> What sort of hardware, 

As yet unspecified hardware, which is why I am asking the list. :)

I seem to remember some very old idea that more than 4 network
interfaces on a PCI bus was a Bad Idea(tm). 

I know conventional wisdom suggests specifying an application and
expected load, but in this particular case I don't really know
exact numbers in advance, I can only determine that the load is
on the scale of ~100 machines, and several gigE networks.

> I've run six pci-bus 10/100 NICs as an ipfw(1) bridging router under 
> FreeBSD 4.8, 1 GHz Celeron, 512 MB PC133 SDRAM with acceptable performance.
> Ergo I wouldn't expect DragonFly to take a back seat relative to any of 
> the other *BSD's - or Linuces.

I'm not bridging, I'm actually routing...so that will take some of the
load off the idea. The downside is I'm routing gigE and I don't want too
much speed to be sacrificed. 

> Serious router/firewall kit is on a different 'Planet' (or Cisco, or ..)
> and better served with an RTOS.

Perhaps. I don't have any data to confirm or deny this, though it seems
reasonable. 
-- 
Dave Hayes - Consultant - Altadena CA, USA - dave at jetcafe.org 
>>> The opinions expressed above are entirely my own <<<

Do you want to examine a socially conditioned individual who
attributes what has been done to him as the work of a higher power?

All you need to do is look at 9 out of 10 "dedicated" people.