FreeBSD based router ...

[Erik Trulsson]

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 09:51:35AM -0400, Bob McConnell wrote:
> From: Robert Huff
> > Bob McConnell writes:
> > 
> >>  >>> define what "enterprise level router" is
> >>  >>
> >>  >> Something that doesn't say 'Vista capable' on the box?
> >>  > 
> >>  > so get 486, 16MB RAM, needed amount of network cards, install
> FreeBSD
> >>  and 
> >>  > configure :)
> >>  > 
> >>  > (pentium may be needed for full 100Mb/s capability)
> >>  
> >>  Finding a box with that enough PCI slots might be problematic.
> > 
> > 	Six slots X quad-port network cards = 24 interfaces.
> > 	If you need more than that, it's probably worth investing in
> > specialized hard-/software.
> 
> > 				Robert Huff
> 
> Where did you find a box with six slots?

Motherboards (in standard ATX format) with six PCI slots are not
all that difficult to find.  If you include PCI-E and PCI-X in 'PCI'
it is even easier, but there certainly exist ones with six normal
32-bit/33MHz PCI slots as well.  Today it is not very common, but if
you look at older socketA boards it was actually fairly common.
(The Asus A7V8X-X is one example of such a board, but there were several
others.)


(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.)




-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se