Tuning Gigabit

[David Gilbert]

>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Anderson <anderson at centtech.com> writes:

Eric> What would be a good initial start hardware-wise?

To start testing this type of setup (gigabit routing), you'd need a
vlan'able switch with many gigabit ports, and then for each test you
need:

1 or more packet generators (one interface each)

1 router (two interfaces)

1 or more victims (one interface each)

For bidirectional packet passing tests, it's best to have two (or
more) generators and 2 or more victims.  The victims generally have
the least load and are good places to measure actual traffic passed.

It's a good idea to have serial (or other) console on each of these
machines as livelock is not uncommon.  There are also useful
statistics you can collect from the console that you can't always get
from the network login ... because the near-livelock conditions may
not give you enough updates.

It is also sometimes a good idea to have a 100meg card in the boxes
for OOB management.

Multiply this times the number of tests you want to do.  We find that
you get about one test every two hours total work (much tearing down
and building up of machines inbetween included in that estimate).

Dave.

-- 
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|David Gilbert, Velocet Communications.       | Two things can only be     |
|Mail:       dgilbert at velocet.net             |  equal if and only if they |
|http://daveg.ca                              |   are precisely opposite.  |
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