[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > What minimum characteristics would a Linux IP Masquerading Firewall > Box need, to run a 100 Mbps link without slowing down traffic.
There was some discussion last January (2001) about this type of thing. The problem you will run into if you are using POTS Intel hardware is the PCI bus speed, so you are going to have a tough time filling one 100Mbs connection with an old Pentium - assuming an old 66Mhz PCI bus. You can forget about filling two or more. Also, cheap NICs will do more to kill your max. throughput. That being said, I run old Pentium 133s with 64Mb RAM in several applications as routers and can notice no network latency on a 100BaseT network, but I have never benchmarked the machines. Usually the bottlenecks are elsewhere - i.e. server hard drive throughput. Packet routing, filtering, masquerading really doesn't require much CPU horsepower. > With two old Pentium boxes and Debian, I could set up a Firewall and a > network traffic watcher within a few hours, thus relieving some > tecnical flaws of the University Network. Linux. World domination... fast. Pete Billson -- http://www.elbnet.com ELB Internet Services, Inc. Web Design, Computer Consulting, Internet Hosting
