*BSD News Article 52921


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From: gallatin@davinci.isds.duke.edu (Andrew Gallatin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
Subject: configuring BSD/OS to use PC as a router
Date: 12 Oct 1995 15:00:28 GMT
Organization: Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences, Duke U.
Lines: 40
Message-ID: <45jaic$7hm@news.duke.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: davinci.isds.duke.edu

Our departmental network (consisiting of about 12 Alphas, 20
DECstations, and a handful of PCs running BSD/OS) is separated from
the networks of about 20 other departments here at Duke using an 8
year old bridge.  The bridge is having trouble keeping up w/all of the
traffic on both sides, and is my main suspect for our bad network
performance (main symptom is a very high collision rate).  Removing
the bridge from the loop only makes things worse.

We don't have the budget to install a 'real' router, and I was hoping
we could get adequate performance from a PC w/2 ethernet cards running
BSD/OS. I was hoping to get advice on 3 issues:

- Which PC?

We've got two older 486s (dx33 and sx25, both w/8MB & tiny IDE HD)
that I could use.  Would the dx33 be signifigantly better than the
sx25? Would it be worth it to spend a few hundred dollars to upgrade
the motherboard of one to a dx100?

- What kind of Ethernet cards?  

Both these machines have cheap 8-bit ne2000 clones in them now.  Would
3c509 cards provide adequte performance for what I want to do?

- How to configure?

I'd like to pass all IP packets going to/from any machine on our
network (152.3.22.x) and reject all broadcast packets, all Novell,
all EtherTalk, and all other PC based-traffic.  Is there a cookbook
someplace that will tell me how to configure routed?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me!

##############################################################################
#		Andrew Gallatin, Computer Project Manager                    #
#	    Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences		     #
#	  Box 90251, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0251		     #
##############################################################################