From owner-freebsd-stable Sun Apr 1 11:57:18 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from chmod.ath.cx (CC2-1242.charter-stl.com [24.217.116.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D320337B718; Sun, 1 Apr 2001 11:57:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from ajh3@chmod.ath.cx) Received: by chmod.ath.cx (Postfix, from userid 1001) id DBE84A91A; Sun, 1 Apr 2001 13:56:22 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 13:56:22 -0500 From: Andrew Hesford To: "Jason T. Luttgens" Cc: 'Mike Smith' , "'David W. Chapman Jr.'" , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Network performance question Message-ID: <20010401135622.A16910@cec.wustl.edu> References: <200104011725.f31HPSC00996@mass.dis.org> <000001c0badb$e4f4da70$0200010a@lucky> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <000001c0badb$e4f4da70$0200010a@lucky>; from lucky@lansters.com on Sun, Apr 01, 2001 at 02:45:16PM -0400 X-Loop: Andrew Hesford Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, Apr 01, 2001 at 02:45:16PM -0400, Jason T. Luttgens wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Smith [mailto:msmith@freebsd.org] > Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 1:25 PM > To: David W. Chapman Jr. > Cc: Jason T. Luttgens; freebsd-stable@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: Network performance question > > > > > FreeBSD kinda disappointed me. It gets ~1000 interface errors on about > > > 514000 packets. I switched the 3COM card out for a NetGear FA311 (sis > > > driver). After receiving ~310000 packets, the network goes down (can't > > > ping/telnet anywhere). At that point I have to ifconfig down and up the > > > interface to get it back. > > >You're disappointed in *FreeBSD* because of this? These are *hardware* > >failures you're describing here... > > Hmm....so the Linux 2.4.3 kernel is somehow accessing the hardware as to not > cause hardware failures then? That's not it at all. Remember, FreeBSD and Linux can grab packets just as fast as they come into the interface... the processor is many times faster than the network card. This is definitely a hardware issue, packets are coming too fast to handle. I'd be willing to bet that Linux simply ignores the interface errors, rather than reporting them. I think what you're seeing is not that Linux handles networking better than FreeBSD, but instead that FreeBSD is more verbose in its error reporting. The important thing to remember here is that the card--not the OS--determines whether or not to drop packets. Even at 100 Mbps, a typical processor only has to poll the card 1/10 to 1/8 of the time in order to catch every bit coming in. I should point out that virtually every real-world networking test shows FreeBSD outperforms comparably configured Linux. -- Andrew Hesford ajh3@chmod.ath.cx To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message