Subject: Re: Minimum machine for IP-NAT?
To: Christian Taylor <ctaylor@fox.nstn.ca>
From: Dave Huang <khym@bga.com>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 10/19/1997 17:56:19
> What I'm wondering, is what would be the minimum machine necessary to
> handle such a task?  I don't care if it's a Intel, Macintosh, Sparc, or
> what, as long as it is up to the task.  I need something cheap.  One of the
> machines on my network is a Mac IIcx running NetBSD 1.2.1, but I'm pretty
> sure it's not fast enough to handle everything.

Hmm... does NAT work with only one network interface? Maybe you can use
the ifaliases stuff to give your network card an internal address and an
external one (the one your ISP knows about) or something.

Anyways, assuming a machine with enough ethernet cards, I'd think that
your Mac could handle it. My ISDN to ethernet router was a 4MB 386/25 up
until recently; I've since upgraded it to an 8MB 386/33. The memory made
the most difference though... I was running sendmail, named, socks5, and
TIS' fwtk stuff on it, as well as a couple of ppp connections. What sorts
of transfer rates do you get between your IIcx and some other (fast) 
machine on your network? If it can do 2Mbps, I'd think it'd be fast
enough. 

If it turns out that it's not fast enough, or that you need two ethernet
cards and you can't find a cheap NuBus ethernet card, old PCs are dirt
cheap, and so are their ethernet cards. You could probably get an old 486
with 8MB of RAM, a hard disk (my router's got a 120MB disk, and it has
about 40MB free... I could trim it down a lot more if I wanted to), and an
ethernet card or two for $150-$200. Take a look at
http://mushi.colo.neosoft.com/hardware.html for example.

Name: Dave Huang     |   Mammal, mammal / their names are called /
INet: khym@bga.com   |   they raise a paw / the bat, the cat /
FurryMUCK: Dahan     |   dolphin and dog / koala bear and hog -- TMBG
Dahan: Hani G Y+C 21 Y++ L+++ W- C++ T++ A+ E+ S++ V++ F- Q+++ P+ B+ PA+ PL++