ccwilliams@wombat.decnet.uq.oz (04/26/88)
We are currently in the process of making an Ethernet monitor by
buying a PC clone and an Ethernet card, and obtaining/writing software.
The questions I wanted to put to the net are these:
(1) What is the best type of card to buy? What are the pros and cons of
'smart' vs. 'dumb' cards?
(2) Would there be much benefit in buying a 80386 machine over a 12 MHz
AT clone?
(3) What software is there available? (Note that the machine will need to
be capable of viewing all traffic - DECNET, TCP/IP, and whatever else.
- this does not rule out the possibility of using something like MIT's
netwatch when we are only interested in TCP/IP though)
Ta Muchly,
Mark Williams
Prentice Computer Centre,
University of Queensland
ccwilliams%wombat.decnet.uq.oz@uunet.uu.net (ARPA)jwhitnel@csi.UUCP (Jerry Whitnell) (04/29/88)
In article <84@wombat.decnet.uq.oz> ccwilliams@wombat.decnet.uq.oz writes: > We are currently in the process of making an Ethernet monitor by >buying a PC clone and an Ethernet card, and obtaining/writing software. > > The questions I wanted to put to the net are these: > >(1) What is the best type of card to buy? What are the pros and cons of > 'smart' vs. 'dumb' cards? It depends on two issues, how fast can the card dma the frames into memory and how fancy do you want to get. The DMA issue is an important one in that in controls how well you can handle back-to-back frames on the wire. The faster the card the better. Intelligence is unimportant since you want all the frames off the wire without any interpretation. The features you want to implement can have some influence on the choice. If you want to filter frames as they come off the wire, it may be useful to put code in the smart card to do the pre-filtering, rather then depending on the main processor. >(2) Would there be much benefit in buying a 80386 machine over a 12 MHz > AT clone? The main issue here is how much do you plan to do while collecting frames. If you're going to limit yourself to 640K and not do alot of filtering things as they come off the wire, the AT is fast enough. If you want a fancy filter system or use extended memory, then the extra speed of the 386 machine is proably worth the cost. If you can get a 386 compiler, then the extra performance may make the 386 a better deal. >Ta Muchly, >Mark Williams Jerry Whitnell Been through Hell? Communication Solutions, Inc. What did you bring back for me? - A. Brilliant