[ale] Meet the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

[agcarver+ale at acarver.net (Alex Carver)]

On 2018-03-14 08:18, Scott M. Jones via Ale wrote:
> The new gigabit network chip makes it almost plausible for router,
> firewall, and access point applications.
> 
> Meet the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+
> 
> https://opensource.com/article/18/3/raspberry-pi-3b-model-news?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=&sc_cid=701f2000000tyL0AAI

I have the older Pi 3 (without GigE) running as a router just fine.  It
just depends on the ISP's service.  I put an AX88179-based GigE USB
adapter on my LAN side and use the Pi's internal Ethernet port for the
WAN side.  I only have 25 Mbit downlink so it's within the range of the
Pi's performance.  If I ever exceeded 100 Mbits downlink then I'd go
with some actual hardware.  However, I might just consider swapping it
out for this particular Pi since it would run a little faster and
probably have better throughput.

The one performance key I found was dedicating the Pi to routing (and
related functions like DHCP) and then increasing the reserved kernel
memory (vm.min_free_kbytes).  I increased mine up to 32 MB (default in
the Pi kernels is 3072 kB) which gives the kernel plenty of space for
the routing tables, buffers, and connection tracking.   I might consider
raising it more if necessary since 1 GB of on-board RAM doesn't get used
much for other things.