Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.sgi.com!news1.best.com!nntp1.best.com!not-for-mail
From: dillon@flea.best.net (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
Subject: Re: Running several networking cards in one system?
Date: 11 Jan 1997 01:08:39 -0800
Organization: BEST Internet Communications, Inc.
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <5b7lan$o5a@flea.best.net>
References: <6OBfLaMbNgB@me-tech.pfm-mainz.de> <5b05fe$4aj@innocence.interface-business.de> <6OW5ep16NgB@me-tech.pfm-mainz.de> <5b6eop$o0h@uriah.heep.sax.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: flea.best.net
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.misc:1895 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:5574 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:33966 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:5152
:In article <5b6eop$o0h@uriah.heep.sax.de>,
:J Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de> wrote:
:>mschmidt@me-tech.PFM-Mainz.de (Michael Schmidt) wrote:
:>
:>> > What do you mean by `load balancing'? Use two NICs with the same IP
:>> > address (on different wires, i suppose)? That's not possible with BSD.
:>
:>> With load balancing I mean that the drivers or administering
:>> processes of the system (FLEET in QNX) check which networking card
:>> is under more load than the other ones and then balance the load and
:>> distribute the network traffic among the networking cards.
:>
:>That's fairly pointless, since the bottleneck is typically the wire,
:>not the NIC, at least for 10 Mbit/s ethernet.
:>
:>No, you can't do this in BSD. Eache interface (network card) needs a
:>distinct IP address.
:>
:>--
:>cheers, J"org
:>
:>joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
:>Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
It should also be noted that in todays terms, most machines only
*need* one network card... a 10/100BaseT ethernet card. You run it
at 100 Mbps, and for most applications you will never saturate the link.
(Ethernet still suffers from a collision problem, but that is readily
solvable with etherswitches. Obviously there are many exceptions, but lets
not argue the fine points).
Also, generally speaking, any external network connection is going to be
10 to 100 times *slower* then your internal net... strict load balancing
of the internal net become pointless... usually you end up dedicating
particular functions to particular portions of your internal net as you
expand, but do not attempt to load balance multiple links between the same
two points. Load balancing the external net is more important, which is
what routers and OSPF is for :-)
-Matt