Okay,

I have 6U of space, and 5Mbps..........

I want to use 1U and 1Mbps and allow others to colocate servers on the remaining of the space at my cost, just to fill the gap and get the great per Mbps pricing..

Problem,
Its on a subnet with provider IP's.
I can get non-provider ips, so thats solved, BUT
I need to be able to monitor and limit the amount of bandwidth each individual server can use, ALSO i need to be able to assign specific IP's to specific servers so they will not just be available to the entire subnet........

Any suggestions?
Layer 3 is out of my budget range... so anymore suggestions?

Anyone??

You could use your machine as a router. If it is FreeBSD drop another nic in it. Have your provider setup vlans and trunking for your ports should be able to manage everything via your new multipurpose fbsd router.
If its linux or another equally near useless OS ask your provider if they'll setup mrtg graphs for each port and take care of ip assignments and restrictions. If you contact your provider about it just be sure to ask for someone with enable. If you talk to someone without it or who doesn't know what it is your likely to get an ignorant response or a flat out no.

With enable?? What is that..lol, i guess im ignorant.

Why do you say other OS's are no good?
Just curious,, im trying to get some servers together and the servers would be dual processor, what would you suggest and why?

enable is like root but for routers and switches.

I have just been using FreeBSD for several years now and it seems to outperform any other OS I have used. Both security/stability/reliablity wise. FreeBSD is just a very powerful and awsome OS there is not much it can't do which is why I like it so much.

I would suggest going with Fbsd of course for same reasons as above. Generally easy to use and easy to fine tune and optimize.

Okay i will check into this, thanks for you help...

I can vouch for zerphytes post.. I have a "multipuprose freebsd router" and it's doing exactly what jdp is trying to do.. Redhat can't do this out of the box either, hahah:D

:flamethr: R00tHAT

But if i do this will i be able to restrict bandwidth and assign ip's that are given to me on the subnet to individual servers??

Yes via ipfw.

I'll have to do that with linux though right,, no control panel?