From owner-freebsd-net@freebsd.org Wed Jul 24 19:35:06 2019 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F6E3B664E for ; Wed, 24 Jul 2019 19:35:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from neel@neelc.org) Received: from foggy.neelc.org (foggy.neelc.org [IPv6:2001:19f0:5:353d:5400:2ff:fe1e:b1ca]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id ABA8370033 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 2019 19:35:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from neel@neelc.org) Received: from mail.neelc.org (foggy.neelc.org [IPv6:2001:19f0:5:353d:5400:2ff:fe1e:b1ca]) by foggy.neelc.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 458F51DC67C for ; Wed, 24 Jul 2019 15:34:57 -0400 (EDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 15:34:56 -0400 From: Neel Chauhan To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Do Broadcom NICs have bad performance on FreeBSD (versus Intel NICs)? Message-ID: <3ed603ffbc991346a83ceaf4ffade07c@neelc.org> X-Sender: neel@neelc.org User-Agent: Roundcube Webmail/1.3.9 X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 19:35:06 -0000 Hi freebsd-net@ mailing list, I have a HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10 as a home server running FreeBSD 12.0 amd64, and run a Tor relay on it. Tor is unable to measure all the bandwidth I give to it (I have 300/300 Verizon FiOS FTTH), and I am guessing it is because of how Tor sends packets the NIC gets overloaded. See: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/as:AS701 My relay is "NeelTorRelay" My server is connected to the Internet directly to the ONT (converts fiber to Ethernet) and all my other devices connect behind the ML110 Gen10 via PF. The ML110 Gen10 has two Broadcom 5720 ports and uses the bge driver. I have heard that Broadcom NICs suck when compared to Intel NICs, but I read that mostly from pfSense and OPNsense forums. Looking at Wireshark (actually tshark), many 609-byte and 66-byte packets were sent along with full 1500-byte packets. Tor's message size is 512 bytes (disclaimer: I am a Tor Core contributor myself). I am wondering if the performance of Broadcom NICs are worse on FreeBSD when compared to Intel NICs. Is this true (especially for my use case, many small packets)? Is there any way I can tune the Broacdom NIC (bge) or the TCP stack? Should I just buy an Intel NIC card? Is this issue not a bge issue but a Verizon issue? Thank You, Neel Chauhan --- https://www.neelc.org/