ipfw rule processing performances

[Karim]

Hi all,

I am using ipfw with a fairly small amount of rules (~200). Most of 
those are skipto rules to different blocking and pass-through blocks. I 
use ipfw tags, ALTQ, nat, fwd and several deny and allow rules and I do 
not use/need tables.

What I find is around 400Mbps of traffic (~40kpps) an extremely high 
amount of cpu usage related to firewall processing.

What I would like to know is if there is an ongoing work to optimise 
ipfw and/or gather ideas on how to do that.

I realise my question has a large scope but I am not interested in 
optimizing my ruleset I'd like to get a feel for how code wise the 
current processing could be optimized (using multiple input TX/RX queues 
for example, etc...).

Thanks,

Karim.