Can FreeBSD withstand this kind of network load??

[Mark Jayson Alvarez]

Hi,
  Someone consulted me about building a pc router for
multiple networks using a single interface card.
Actually there are two, one facing a network going to
the internet, and the other facing those multiple
networks.

The setup looks like this.
There are three /24 networks, A, B, C
All of these networks are private lan. However,
Network A contains their servers, one of which is
their internet proxy server. That proxy server is dual
homed, one private, one public, which is also their
passage way to the Internet.

Now, the IT guy asked me if he can use a pc router so
that network B and C can see network A, and make their
way to the internet through the proxy server sitting
on network A.

I told him yes. I'm thinking of three posibilities,
bridging, ip forwarding, and NAT. In his sketch, PC
router has 3 interfaces, 1 facing network A, and two
each facing network B and C. With this setup, since A
already have a route to the Internet, we don't have to
use NAT, ip forwarding will do the job. We will simply
forward the request coming from each interface
connected to network B and C to the interface
connected to network A and then they can already see
the proxy. However, he told me that network B and C in
his sketch is not really their set up. It could extend
to even few more networks(D, E, F, G, H).

Qestion:

Instead of using 6 to 8 interface cards in his pc
router,(which I don't think is a good idea) can we
just alias that interface, let's say it has an ip for
networks B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and then all the
traffic from B-I network will pass through this
interface through some sort of cascading switches and
then routed will forward this to the second interface
facing the A network and then every body will be
happy? Or is it not feasible considering that all the
traffic from 6-8 networks will only pass through a
single interface considering that each network will at
least have 30-50 hosts?


What's even funny about this is that he brought that
pc he will turn into a router in our office so that we
can install freebsd-4.11 with this specs:

pentium III - 500 Mhz
memory  64 MB.
HD      4 GB

I just don't know whats wrong with his hard drive,
FreeBSD panics during the installation process. I just
smiled thinking, "whoa!, you're building a pc router
that will route hundreds of host with this specs??" 

I haven't really encountered this kind of setup yet,
that's why I told him I will do a research on this
setup. I've heard that freebsd can be configured as a
web server with this specs serving hundreds of clients
with just few tweekings.. 
What do you think with his scenario?


Thanks a lot!!.:) 
You're the best!




























		
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