FreeBSD Gateway

[Micah Bushouse]

> > "Victor Foulk" <VFoulk at KEWD.com> wrote:
> [...]
> "Bill Moran" <wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:
[...]
> However, in my experience, the most critical hardware choice is
> the network cards themselves.  Cheapo network cards will really
> hurt performance under load.  So toss the cheapo Realtek cards
> into the trash and spend a little extra on an Intel or other name
> brand card designed for a server.
[...]

Similarly to Mr. Foulk, I'm also in the market for a pair of NICs for a
small organization's firewall/gateway (in this case using IPFilter). 

Per your plug for Intel, I'm browsing 3Com and Intel NICs right now on
mwave.com. 

Intel 10/100 w 3DES - $63
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=1562535
3Com 10/100 w 3DES - $92
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=3387169

Why do you suppose that while the 3Com seems very similar to the Intel
it costs $30 more? Perhaps because it specs more types of encryption
than the Intel NIC?

How would this hardware acceleration integrate w FreeBSD? Per some Linux
binary compat (as both cards are compat w Linux kernel 2.2+)?

Will the hardware encryption on these cards ever be useful in a
firewall/gateway application?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks for your time,

-- 
Micah Bushouse <bushous2 at msu.edu>