I'm using IPTables 1.2.4 on Kernel 2.4.18. I'm planning on putting about 1200 users behind a firewall, and am trying to get an idea of what kind of computer I'll need and how many rules I may have.
How many rules can I have in my firewall before it starts to slow network traffic down? As in, given a firewall processor of X running at Y Megahertz, with two 100Mbit NICs, anything over Z rules really gets slow. Can anyone one the list provide some figures of their number of rules + number of computers behind the firewall + hardware that the firewall is running on? How has this worked for you, as regards performance? Thanks, Ted Fines Macalester College
