> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jerry B. > Altzman > Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 7:31 AM > To: Erik Trulsson > Cc: Bob McConnell; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: FreeBSD based router ... > > > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Erik Trulsson > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > (Putting a total of 6 quad-port NICs on a single PCI-bus would > totally swamp > > that bus though, so if one were to actually use so many NICs I > would rather > > recommend e.g. the Asus P5BP-E/4L motherboard. It has 3 PCI slots and 3 > > PCI-E slots in addition to the four gigabit LAN ports included on the > > motherboard - so you can get a total of 28 ports if you fully > populate all > > slots with quad-port NICs (not counting any USB-connected > ethernet ports one > > might add.) It also has built-in graphics so one does not need to waste > > one slot on a graphics card.) > > And all this just to *pass packets*; if you're making real *routing* > decisions based upon that (i.e. you're making a router rather than a > switch), which requires that packets take a trip to the CPU, you'll > find yourself coming to the realization that Cisco and Juniper might > actually be on to something, there, and that ASICs might actually be > worth what you paid for them. >
If it's purely ethernet-to-ethernet routing, and a lot of ethernet ports, then he should check into the layer-3 switches on the market and see if they will work for him. Much cheaper than a "real router" Ted _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
