Thanks Tim!

Guess I know what my project is for next weekend :-)

James 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Fournet
> Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 9:22 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [brlug-general] networking ignorance
> 
> 1) no. The switch sends traffic directly to the port that 
> it's destined for
> 2) You probably won't notice any real slowdowns unless you're 
> sniffing the traffic as it's coming across. If there is a 
> bottleneck, it won't be in the CPU of the firewall box, but 
> in the PCI bus. I wouldn't worry about it, unless you 
> absolutely need wirespeed. For 5 or fewer machines, I can't 
> see you needing to spend the money on the kind of hardware 
> you'd need to achieve this.
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 09:10, James Kuhns wrote:
> > I'm hoping somone on here could answer a few questions for me 
> > concerning gigabit networking with a firewall.
> > 
> > I'm about to upgrade my home network to gigabit.  I 
> currently have a 
> > firewall with 3 interfaces - lan, dmz and internet.  The 
> lan interface 
> > goes to a 10/100 switch with 4 wired ports and is also a wireless 
> > point (3 machines wired and 2 laptops on the wireless), the 
> dmz goes 
> > to a 5 port 10/100 switch (1 machine right now), and the 
> internet goes 
> > straight to my cable modem.
> > 
> > What I'm thinking of doing is:
> > 1) replacing two of the 10/100 nics in the firewall with 
> 10/100/1000 
> > nics (for lan and dmz)
> > 2) replacing the 10/100 nics in the other machines with 10/100/1000 
> > nics
> > 3) replacing the lan switch with an 8 port 10/100/1000 switch
> > 4) hanging the old lan switch off one of the ports on the 
> new switch 
> > (to use strictly for wireless)
> > 5) replacing the dmz switch with a 5 port 10/100/1000 switch
> > 
> > I see this having 4 bottlenecks:
> > 1) firewall <-> cable modem (I'll leave a 10/100 nic in the 
> firewall 
> > for the internet interface - the modem will only connect to the 
> > firewall at 10 half duplex anyway)
> > 2) cable modem <-> COX
> > 3) machines in the lan <-> machines in the dmz (the firewall that 
> > connects the two nets is a pretty low powered machine right 
> now - AMD 
> > K6 2 350, so I don't see it being able to keep the pipes full)
> > 4) wireless access point <-> lan switch (doesn't matter 
> since the only 
> > machines on this leg are wireless).
> > 
> > The main benefit I'm looking for is the ability to move 
> huge (3-10 GB) 
> > files (vmware sessions, install cd/dvd isos, etc.) around 
> on the lan 
> > machines (excluding the wireless laptops of course).  I'm 
> going ahead 
> > and uping the dmz switch and machines right now so that 
> when I replace 
> > the firewall with a beefier machine the lan <-> dmz 
> bottleneck should 
> > open up. Bottlenecks 1, 2, and 4 are inherent in the 
> > equipment/technology so I'm not worried about them.
> > 
> > The questions I have are:
> > 1) Will traffic between lan machines have to go through the 
> firewall 
> > (creating a bottleneck I didn't forsee)?
> > 2) Will upgrading the firewall machine later open up the 
> lan <-> dmz 
> > bottleneck like I think?
> > 
> > If its relevant, the different net settings are:
> > The lan and dmz are different networks (192.168.0.x and 
> 192.168.1.x), 
> > all machines have a netmask of 255.255.255.0 and a default 
> gateway of 
> > their respective interface on the firewall (192.168.0.1 or 
> 192.168.1.1).
> > 
> > Thanks
> > James
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net
> 
> 
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