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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!newsfeeds.sol.net!newspump.sol.net!howland.erols.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.emi.com!news.NH.Destek.Net!mozart.jlc.net!jtn From: jtn@frodo.mc.com (Jason T. Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD as PC router? Date: 22 Jan 1997 14:43:12 GMT Organization: JLC-net, Milford NH Lines: 40 Message-ID: <5c5920$kca@mozart.jlc.net> References: <32E4D14C.566@digital.net> <nigel.9.000974F0@znet.net.au> Reply-To: jtn@mc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: frodo.mc.com X-Wintrmute: boo X-EBOAI: yes X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.0.0 (BETA) UNIX) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:34351 On Wed, 22 Jan 1997 09:27:20, Nigel Gorry <nigel@znet.net.au> scribbled: >In article <32E4D14C.566@digital.net> gunnery@digital.net writes: >>As I noticed that FreeBSD O/S can run as low-cost PC Router. >>I'm interested to know what hardware requirement(s) of PCRouter by >>FreeBSD? I see mostly 486 or Pentium motherboards and add some Ethernet >>cards at all. >>Which one best for PCrouter: IDE or SCSI hard drive? 500mb or 1.2 gb >>SCSI or IDE HD? How much RAMs to runnin' the pcrouter? Or Am I miss >>something require for pcrouter? >I use a 386DX-40 with 8Mb and a 120Mb HDD to route between my coax network and >a PPP link to the Internet. The machine is also my mailserver. > >It's not the fastest machine for general use, but certainly handles the >routing part very well. As an experiment at an ISP I used to work for, I built an x86 router using FreeBSD 2.1.0 (the latest -release at the time) hoping it would be able to handle routing at least 2 T1's and 3 ethernets. I never actually figured that this machine would be used as a production router, but as far as I know, it is still in use at that ISP. I used a Micronics Pentium motherboard (mainly so I could have 8 SIMM sockets) with a 90MHz P5 and 32Mb of RAM. It was (maybe still is) running gated and doing RIP and OSPF. The sync serial card was Emerging Technologies' ET2025 and it had a frame relay T1 attached to it. Worked WONDERFULLY routing IP between the 3 ethernets and the T1; it worked so well that I even put in the netatalk patches and it routed DDP (AppleTalk) at the same time with no troubles. I highly recommend this at least for experience's sake. Now that I think about it (and now that I have 2.1.6-release), I would have not used hard drives to store the OS and such. Perhaps Zip with several identical backup disks for when the Zip cartridge died (for those whining about moving parts). Either that, or get a PCMCIA adaptor and use flash ATA hard drives.. -- Jason T. Nelson <jtn@mc.com> Mercury Computer Systems, Inc Chelmsford, MA PGP fingerprint = C5 13 96 4F 7C 75 7E 4B AB 0A A4 CE AA 4C 43 72 disclaimer: I speak for no one but myself.