From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 18 03:58:12 2003 Return-Path: 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 DA56D37B401 for ; Sun, 18 May 2003 03:58:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gabrielle.polarcap.org (a.ns.polarcap.org [62.84.209.4]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A6DEB43FA3 for ; Sun, 18 May 2003 03:58:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tsar@polarcap.org) Received: (qmail 30578 invoked from network); 18 May 2003 10:58:31 -0000 Received: from as10-3-1.sbg.s.bonet.se (HELO polarcap.org) (217.215.183.53) by 0 with SMTP; 18 May 2003 10:58:31 -0000 Message-ID: <3EC76740.6000307@polarcap.org> Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 12:58:08 +0200 From: Tony Sarendal User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020529 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Luigi Rizzo References: <3EC73BF6.2050802@polarcap.org> <20030518023523.A28847@xorpc.icir.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: polling(4) and Gigabit X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 10:58:12 -0000 Luigi Rizzo wrote: > On Sun, May 18, 2003 at 09:53:26AM +0200, Tony Sarendal wrote: > >> From what I can see nge is the only polling driver for >>Gig NICs, looking at 4.8. Has anyone done any performance > > > actually that would be 'em' > The nge driver looked like it had it, and 4.8 release notes: The nge(4) driver now supports network device polling(4). I couldn't find it in any other driver, but Mike T. pointed out that I should look at STABLE. I'll do that. > >>tests on this ? I'm interested in knowing what can of >>bandwidth/pps one actually can achieve on a PC router. > > > it depends on a lot of factors including the size of the routing > table, the firewall ruleset complexity, the bus speed, the CPU > speed, the packet sizes. > Since I'm coming from Ciscoland I can buy the fattest PC on the block and still think it's a steal. > With a fast enough box (2.4GHz) i reached some 650-700kpps through > a FreeBSD box running 4.7 and configured as a bridge, similar > thing with a router and fastforwarding. If you use the firewall, you > could get down to some 400-500kpps at best. This is with 64-byte > packets. In terms of bandwidth, with large enough frames (i'd > say 500+ bytes) you should have no trouble running close > to wire speed (again, depending on the above factors). > > 650-700kpps on a 2.4GHz, that's awesome, what was the limitation ? CPU ? Do you know how much $ I have to spend to buy a Cisco which can match that in reality ? I can tell you, a lot ! Besides, Cisco counts one packet through the router as two packets. That makes it 1.3-1.4Mpps. After that the marketing department enters and makes it 3Mpps. >>If the NIC now is the limitation(?), how much OS resources >>do I have left after the NIC is running at 100% ? > > > the NIC is not always the limitation, you can run out of > steam on many parts of the system. > Faster PC's come along a lot more often than faster routers, or even faster NICs, if the NIC isn't the limitation but the CPU then more speed is on the way. /Tony