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List:       freebsd-hackers
Subject:    Re: Packet Routing..
From:       Tom <tom () sdf ! com>
Date:       1997-09-30 6:33:22
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On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Jamil J. Weatherbee wrote:

> I am not sure about the mechanism, but If I have a freebsd machine acting
> as a firewall between a 10bT Ethernet and fractional to full T1. How does
> the gatewaying/firewalling ability degrade as a function of the load of
> unrelated processes on that machine. In other words I am running some huge
> backup/ big simulation on my firewall (lets say a PPro 200) does it
> measurably effect the Throughput of the firewall? Does anyone have some
> numbers on this. Basically saying what the networking capabilities of
> freebsd are on variously configured machines. Like would it be a bad Idea
> to use a freebsd machine as a router between 4 100 baseT networks and a
> T1?

  You are going to have to measure it.  You need to look at the number of
packets per second your hardware can handle.  You shouldn't have a
throughput problems unless you hit your motherboard's memory bandwith
limit.  So you need to figure out the packet per second rate your router
box must be able to handle.  Other processes running on your router box
shouldn't degrade performance severely unless the CPU is at 100%, although
you may see more latency.

  Some things to measure:

latency - how long it takes to process (route) a packet
pps - how many packets per second it can process
throughput - how many bytes per second it can process


Tom

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