From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Nov 5 12:20:07 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 356BE106566C for ; Sat, 5 Nov 2011 12:20:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bevan@bi-co.net) Received: from tomahna.bi-co.net (tomahna.bi-co.net [178.77.99.158]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 882EF8FC0A for ; Sat, 5 Nov 2011 12:20:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 10098 invoked from network); 5 Nov 2011 12:53:24 +0100 Received: from ip-109-91-30-235.unitymediagroup.de (HELO ?192.168.178.21?) (109.91.30.235) by tomahna.bi-co.net with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 5 Nov 2011 12:53:24 +0100 Message-ID: <1320494003.19667.41.camel@bevan-pc.fritz.box> From: Michael =?ISO-8859-1?Q?La=DF?= To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2011 12:53:23 +0100 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" X-Mailer: Evolution 3.2.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: Gigabit Ethernet performance with Realtek 8111E X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: bevan@bi-co.net List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2011 12:20:07 -0000 Hi! I've got a small NAS with Intel D525MW (Atom) board inside using FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 as operating system. It has an onboard Realtek 8111E ethernet adapter. I'm experiencing heavy performance problems when transfering files from a specific PC in my network to that NAS. I did the following tests by transfering large amount of data between the diferrent machines (using dd and nc): NAS -> Linux1: ~ 400Mbit/s NAS -> Linux2: ~ 400Mbit/s Linux1 -> NAS: heavy fluctuation, between 700Mbit/s and 0bit/s Linux2 -> NAS: ~ 400Mbit/s Linux1 -> Linux2: ~ 400Mbit/s Linux2 -> Linux1: ~ 400Mbit/s As you can see everythink works fine except for transfering data from Linux1 to that NAS box. The following graph shows the problem: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25455527/network-problems.png While the transfer rate drops to zero the NAS also has a very bad ping up to one second. Ping of Linux1 is perfectly fine during these outages. I also had a quick look on the data stream with wireshark on Linux1 and it shows a lot of TCP Dup ACK (up to 263 Dup ACKs created by NAS for one frame). What can be eliminated as a cause is: - Switch (I tried connecting Linux1 and NAS directly) - Cable (I changed that a few times) - Harddisk I/O (I'm only writing from /dev/zero to /dev/null) The sevirity of that problem varies from one minute to another but can always be reproduced with a few tries. When limiting either NAS or Linux1 to 100Mbit I'm getting a steady transfer rate of about 90Mbit/s. When decreasing the MTU on NAS to 1200 the problem seems to disappear, getting a transfer rate of about 160Mbit/s. ifconfig re0: > re0: flags=8843 metric 0 mtu 1500 > options=388b > ether 38:60:77:3e:af:a5 > inet 192.168.178.54 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.178.255 > nd6 options=29 > media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT ) > status: active pciconf -lv: > re0@pci0:1:0:0: class=0x020000 card=0xd6258086 chip=0x816810ec rev=0x06 hdr=0x00 > vendor = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.' > device = 'RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller' > class = network > subclass = ethernet Because Linux1 seems to be involved in that problem: It's running Linux 3.0 and it has an "Atheros Communications AR8121/AR8113/AR8114" onboard. Does anyone have an idea what could be the problem here? Decreasing the MTU is some kind of solution but the performance is still not optimal and a MTU of 1500 should be no problem. Greetings, Michael Laß