Re: How fast can Linux-Firewalls be?
Jorge.Lehner@gmx.net wrote:
> What minimum characteristics would a Linux IP Masquerading Firewall
> Box need, to run a 100 Mbps link without slowing down traffic.
There was some discussion last January (2001) about this type of
thing. The problem you will run into if you are using POTS Intel
hardware is the PCI bus speed, so you are going to have a tough time
filling one 100Mbs connection with an old Pentium - assuming an old
66Mhz PCI bus. You can forget about filling two or more. Also, cheap
NICs will do more to kill your max. throughput.
That being said, I run old Pentium 133s with 64Mb RAM in several
applications as routers and can notice no network latency on a 100BaseT
network, but I have never benchmarked the machines. Usually the
bottlenecks are elsewhere - i.e. server hard drive throughput. Packet
routing, filtering, masquerading really doesn't require much CPU
horsepower.
> With two old Pentium boxes and Debian, I could set up a Firewall and a
> network traffic watcher within a few hours, thus relieving some
> tecnical flaws of the University Network.
Linux. World domination... fast.
Pete Billson
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