[X4U] Mac mini as an Internet Gateway.

[Craig A. Finseth]

	...
   > It also depends on the application load.

   I can't quote any figures on it, so it'd be great to hear from someone 
   who can, but I don't think we're talking that order of magnitude.

   If you route on a single interface then IMMEDIATELY a packet comes in, 
   the router acknowledges it on one interface and forwards it to another 
   computer on ... erm... another interface that happens to be aliased to 
   the same phyiscal ethernet socket. Bonkl! Bonk! Packet clash! The 
   TCP/IP stack retransmits each of the packets after a random interval, 
   but by that time more packets have come in.

Resending the packet should be no different from sending multiple
packets in a row (e.g., in an FTP session).  Normal Ethernet carrier
sense will apply and, on a properly configured interface (e.g., no
duplex mismatches), you should see no performance degradation.

   I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a 100Mbps connection was slowed to 
   less than kilobits, (ie less than the speed of the DSL connection) or 
   if it just caused hideous instability, or killer unreliability in 
   anything trying to use the network interface. When I read about this 

Again, given a properly configured interface, I would be VERY
surprised to see such degredation.

And if the interface is not properly configured, you'll see this
problem in any usage pattern.

FWIW, I've been building and programming Ethernet interfaces for over
25 years.  (Yes, since the days of the original thick cable.)  Which
is probably way too long (:-).

Craig