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From: julian@mailhub.tfs.com (Julian Elischer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for suitable HW and SW for network traffic measurement platform
Date: 21 Nov 1995 22:21:07 GMT
Organization: TRW Financial Systems, Oakland, CA
Lines: 96
Message-ID: <48tjcj$r76@times.tfs.com>
References: <STEINAR.HAUG.95Nov21155902@bokfink.runit.sintef.no>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1395 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:9409 comp.os.linux.misc:72361
In article <STEINAR.HAUG.95Nov21155902@bokfink.runit.sintef.no>,
Steinar Haug <Steinar.Haug@runit.sintef.no> wrote:
:We're looking for suitable HW and SW for a network traffic measurement
:platform. What we'd like to do is:
You seem to know a lot about how to do this so I'll just
give you information regarding FreeBSD and the job.. related to your comments..
:
:- Measure traffic on at least four Ethernets from the same box, and be able
:to handle close to four full Ethernets streams of traffic with average packet
:size of around 250 bytes.
:
:- Low-level packet capture via Berkeley Packet Filter.
:
:- Higher level measurement via tcpdump, NNstat and various other programs.
Not sure about 40Mb/sec aggregate... that's quite a lot...
if anyoen can do it on a PC FreeBSD can, but the bpf mecfhanism does
have some inefficiencies in it..
:
:We would normally *not* want to log every packet to disk, but it would be
:an advantage to be able to do so.
hmm this would depend on tcpdump..
I don't rememeber an option to do this...hmm I guess the 'w' option
would do what you want?
:
:We're thinking along the lines of a PCI based Pentium box, with a suitable
:amount of memory (64 MByte or so), large amounts of SCSI disk, and four or
:more Ethernet cards. Possible problems we foresee are:
:
:- Lack of support for PCI based Ethernet cards in NetBSD/FreeBSD. Last time
:I checked, the 3Com 590 card, for instance, was not supported under FreeBSD.
Where did you look to get *THAT* information?
:What PCI based cards *are* supported?
Any cards using the 24140, 24040, 24141 or related chips from dec
I believe that includes some 3com cards....
these cards are screamers, and you can run them (the 2414x versions) at 100Mb/s
the driver is if_de.c for interfaces de0, de1, de2....
also there is a 3C590 driver in -current..
It should just compile and run in 2.1 but I haven't checked..
there are some PCI versions of the cards supprted by the 'ed' driver too.
:
:- Number of free slots in a PCI based system. As I mentioned, we'd like to
:have at least four Ethernet cards, possibly more. We'd prefer multiport
:Ethernet cards (something along the lines of Sun's Quad Ethernet card would
:be great), in order to use fewer slots, but haven't really found any such
:cards for the x86 PCI platform.
There is a 4 port card for the 'de' driver..
Matt Thomas can give you the name..
His freeBSD driver runs it just fine.. (is in 2.1)
:
:I would be highly sceptical of an ISA based solution, given the large amount
:of traffic this box should be able to handle.
you are correct on this..
4 x 1.2MB/sec = 4.8MB/sec
which is > the ISA bandwith for many systems
:
:Can anybody suggest suitable HW and SW for these requirements? Any specific
:reason to prefer NetBSD or FreeBSD? Would Linux be better? (Any support for
:BPF in Linux?)
I would suggest that FreeBSD is as capable a system as you will find to
do this.. You have the tools you are obviously familiar with to work with,
and it has excellent Networking support. The full support of the 4-port
10/100Mbit card is something you should consider..
NetBSD is exectly equal to FreeBSD in this regard. Linux networking
support for this sort of thing is something I've never heard about so I can't
comment.
My comment is that using FreeBSD for the job is a "Minimal Risk" choice.
It's easy to drop freeBSD on the box and try it..
if it doesn't work, well, all the choices are "the right Price"
If you decide to do this and have problems, contact me..
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
If you decide to do this and have problems, contact me.
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