[ILUG] linux as a switch

[Paul Jakma]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004, John P. Looney wrote:

> Does anyone know if people have done much with using Linux boxes as 
> switches ? You can get off the shelf boxes with 12 nics, and they 
> would make a nice switch, if ethernet bridging and STP worked well. 
> VLANs seem to work fine, so that's also a prerequisite.

Hmm, arent you posting to wrong list? ;)

You really dont want a Linux switch, least not with common 
desktop/server orientated NICs. You'd want the actual switching 
offloaded. (funnily enough, Linux /used/ to be able to do something 
vaguely like this, with certain NICs, but that's deprecated now, 
possibly gone completely - direct NIC to NIC transfers, tulip 
supported it - no idea if it worked well, and you obviously couldnt 
do anything firewalling.).

What you /really/ want is a good L3 switch, or a pair of them, that 
speak a decent routing protocol so that your linux boxes can tell 
them where to direct traffic..

> John

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Nothing is as simple as it seems at first
 	Or as hopeless as it seems in the middle
 		Or as finished as it seems in the end.