firewalls, a practical question

[Rob Ross <rbross parl eng clemson edu>]

Hello all,

Ok, so all this talk has prompted my group to consider installing a
firewall.  It looks like the most economical approach would be to drop in
a machine running linux between our router and our switch to perform this
function.  We have a 100Mbit full duplex connection here (to other routers
on campus), so we would like to be able to pump data through the firewall
at this rate. 

Is using a linux box the appropriate choice (I would prefer this)?  What
class of processor and I/O bus will be necessary to handle 100Mbit FD
traffic?  I'm sure a number of you have experience with this, and I'd like
to benefit from it <smile>!

[mod: Please reply to Rob, he'll summarize... You know the drill --REW]

Thanks,

Rob Ross
Parallel Architecture Research Laboratory, Clemson University
mailto:rbross parl eng clemson edu
http://ece.clemson.edu/parl/rbross/