From owner-freebsd-net Thu Jul 18 7:55:55 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5CF6737B400 for ; Thu, 18 Jul 2002 07:55:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from exchange.epx.com (exchange.epx.com [128.121.22.246]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C97ED43E5E for ; Thu, 18 Jul 2002 07:55:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tsevy@exchange.epx.com) Received: (from root@localhost) by exchange.epx.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g6IEteH00795 for net@freebsd.org; Thu, 18 Jul 2002 10:55:40 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from tsevy) Message-Id: <200207181455.g6IEteH00795@exchange.epx.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: freebsd To: net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Question about network layers in FreeBSD 4.x Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 10:55:40 -0400 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Thierry/all, I do now notice that if I don't put a bpf filter inplace to cut out some of the traffic there are a lot of dropped packets. My question then is: Does FreeBSD multi-thread the NIC drivers? Right now, using the dc driver. From: Thierry Herbelot [thierry@herbelot.com] Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 2:02 PM To: freebsd Cc: net@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Question about network layers in FreeBSD 4.x freebsd wrote: > > I have a system I run FreeBSD 4.5-release on. The purpose of this system is > to run Snort (IDS). > > The current system is a Compaq Proliant 1850R, have also tried on a Compaq > Proliant 1600R. > > Both systems are SMP with dual processors, > 256m ram, and Compaq Smart Array > controller to handle raid in hardware. > FreeBSD 4.x (did-you notice 4.6 has been released ?) is not very good at using SMP machines where there are lots of interrupts (the kernel can only be run by one CPU at any one time, and this is enforced by a "Big Giant Lock"). you should re-run your test without the SMP option, to see it the problem is still here (it should not) then, there are kernel options in recent versions of FreeBSD enabling an optimized use of the interrupts (DEVICE POLLING). this may help you, if the driver has been modified. I used a cheap 4-port NIC from DLINK (DFE-570-TX) with very good success (this is the dc driver) Hope this helps TfH To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-net" in the body of the message