I own an Edgerouter X which I would like to use as a Switch but with Layer 3 features, i.e. IPv4 and IPv6 Routing with static or dynamic routes.
How do I know if an OpenWrt supported device is able to offload Layer 3 to the hardware so it can perform line rate.
In a scenario where I have 5 devices connected and all a routed over the switch, would I be able to saturate 5 times 1 Gig, or since it's an uneven number something that comes close?
When running EdgeOS, you just need to make sure that HW offloading is enabled, and that certain features (namely QoS/smart queues and netflow) are disabled. I can't answer this one for you with respect to OpenWrt, but...
The maximum routing bandwidth of the ER-X (when using HW offloading) is 1Gbps TOTAL. Unlike the switching backplane which can forward at 1Gbps between any 2 ports (2Gbps if you count 1Gbps Rx + 1Gbps Tx) and can do this across multiple ports (so say eth0-1 and eth3-4 as an example) simultaneously, the routing engine will saturate with just 1Gbps total across all connections, regardless of the source/destination and direction of the data flow (and it isn't 1+1 the way it is with the switching subsystem, it is 1Gbps max, so 500 + 500 would saturate the routing engine, as an example, or any combination of streams that totals 1Gbps -- say 100Mbps up, 50Mbps down from port eth0, 250Mpbs up + 100Mbps down from port eth2, and 250Mbps + 250Mbps from eth4, just as an another illustration). This is due to a limitation with the hardware design with respect to the processor's connection to the hardware switch.
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