Handling 100.000 packets/sec or more

[Sten Daniel Sørsdal]

> 
>   What can I do to make the system better handle this kind of 
> traffic ?
> Could device polling(8) or just increasing the kernel 
> frequency clock to 1000Hz or more improve the situation ?
>   What kind of network cards could face a lot better this 
> burden ? Are there any other solutions ?
> 

device polling(8) really does help _alot_ for packet floods/storms.
for device polling to work properly (imho) you would need to set HZ to 1000.
I dont recommend any higher HZ on a PIII.
I recommend Intel cards (fxp or em) because they chew through packets at 
the highest rate (in our tests) given good supporting hardware and tuned software.
Both support device polling.