Multiple ethernets on one cable modem

[Mark Donnelly]

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999 tkeller at helpdesk.mso.stratus.com wrote:

> /sbin/ifconfig  eth0 hw ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
> where the xx:xx ... is the mac address that you want to transmit with.

One slight note about this method: this might well start hurting
performance, possibly perceptably for older machines.  What this does is
put your card in promiscuous mode, and use your CPU as an address filter,
rather than the hardware that comes with the chip.  This can be a
noticable hit for some slower machines; just look at how much people hated
the 3c501 (I think) or many of the cheap NE2000 clones (and I think the
2000 itself!).

Of course, this becomes absolutely moot if your cable modem is intelligent
enough to filter out your address for you - in that case you're still
using CPU to filter out unwanted traffic, but you'll never have to waste
cycles on rejecting any.

--Mark Donnelly

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