Date:        Tue, 3 Jun 2003 16:56:16 +0900
    From:        henry nelson <netb@irm.nara.kindai.ac.jp>
    Message-ID:  <20030603075612.GA12675@irm.nara.kindai.ac.jp>

  | and no crashes) to run a dedicated ipfilter/nat machine on a LAN to which
  | about 1000 PCs are connected.  At maximum, 400 PCs would be accessing the
  | Internet within a narrow time window.

What bandwith to the Internet?   If its less than 100Mbps or so, the
speed of the PC doing the NAT/LAN (within reason anyway - that is,
anything you buy today) isn't going to matter.   The number of clients
doesn't matter all that much (a bit more state to retain), what matters
is the number of packets per second, and that's going to be limited by
the link to the world.   On the other hand, if you have a Gbps link to
the Internet, you might want to start looking at something that has
a cost that's in proportion to what you're going to be paying for the link.

kre

ps: I didn't see this request from you on -help