2004-09-08 17:45:28

by Ram Chandar

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Linux Routing Performance inferior?


Quoted from a recent mail to freebsd mailing list.

"FreeBSD (5.x) can route 1Mpps on a 2.8G Xeon while
Linux can't do much more than 100kpps"

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-net/2004-September/004840.html

Is this indeed the case?

Ram Chandar.
--


2004-09-08 18:02:30

by William Stearns

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Linux Routing Performance inferior?

Good afternoon, Ram,

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Ram Chandar wrote:

> Quoted from a recent mail to freebsd mailing list.
>
> "FreeBSD (5.x) can route 1Mpps on a 2.8G Xeon while
> Linux can't do much more than 100kpps"
>
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-net/2004-September/004840.html
>
> Is this indeed the case?

I'm sure others here have far better examples, but one post to the
netfilter-devel list last December provided an example of a firewall that
could process 580kpps with netfilter/conntrack turned off. Granted, the
post noted that adding netfilter brought that down to 450kpps, and adding
conntrack on top of that brought it down to 295kpps, but all three of
those numbers are well over the claimed 100kpps.
Cheers,
- Bill

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2004-09-08 18:45:45

by Nathan Bryant

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Linux Routing Performance inferior?

William Stearns wrote:
> Good afternoon, Ram,
>
> On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Ram Chandar wrote:
>
>
>>Quoted from a recent mail to freebsd mailing list.
>>
>>"FreeBSD (5.x) can route 1Mpps on a 2.8G Xeon while
>>Linux can't do much more than 100kpps"
>>
>>http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-net/2004-September/004840.html
>>
>>Is this indeed the case?
>
>
> I'm sure others here have far better examples, but one post to the
> netfilter-devel list last December provided an example of a firewall that
> could process 580kpps with netfilter/conntrack turned off. Granted, the
> post noted that adding netfilter brought that down to 450kpps, and adding
> conntrack on top of that brought it down to 295kpps, but all three of
> those numbers are well over the claimed 100kpps.

Nonetheless, FreeBSD has some advantages. They achieved their results
using a fast forwarding path (enabled via sysctl) that processes
forwarded packets to completion entirely within the interrupt handler.

2004-09-08 18:56:57

by Norbert van Nobelen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Linux Routing Performance inferior?

BSD is known for good network performance, however I don't know benchmarks.
I think the difference is to big: The routing/IP stack combined being 10 times
less efficient is too much.

They also don't mention which linux kernel they use. Reading the
FreeBSD-5.3-Networking.pdf they did some optimasations which are probably not
advisable if you don't use your box as a router.
The goal of this person is as far as I can see to build a router only, so in
theory you could build in the same optimasations in network stack of linux

Also look at page 11: The fastforwarding is a solid positive step on how a
router should work. So even the performance of FreeBSD is not considered like
a real router OS.



On Wednesday 08 September 2004 19:36, you wrote:
> Quoted from a recent mail to freebsd mailing list.
>
> "FreeBSD (5.x) can route 1Mpps on a 2.8G Xeon while
> Linux can't do much more than 100kpps"
>
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-net/2004-September/004840.html
>
> Is this indeed the case?
>
> Ram Chandar.
> --
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2004-09-08 19:03:14

by Matt Kavanagh

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Linux Routing Performance inferior?

On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 11:06:17PM +0530, Ram Chandar wrote:
>
> Quoted from a recent mail to freebsd mailing list.
>
> "FreeBSD (5.x) can route 1Mpps on a 2.8G Xeon while
> Linux can't do much more than 100kpps"
>
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-net/2004-September/004840.html
>
> Is this indeed the case?

Seems to be pretty much just biased conjecture IMO. I wouldn't
dismiss the possibility of FreeBSD having (in some situations)
significantly better routing performance than linux in the same
situation..but getting me to believe that would require proper,
objective benchmarks.

All from a user's perspective.

2004-09-08 19:22:24

by Tomasz Torcz

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Linux Routing Performance inferior?

On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 02:41:34PM -0400, Nathan Bryant wrote:
> >>"FreeBSD (5.x) can route 1Mpps on a 2.8G Xeon while
> >>Linux can't do much more than 100kpps"
>
> Nonetheless, FreeBSD has some advantages. They achieved their results
> using a fast forwarding path (enabled via sysctl) that processes
> forwarded packets to completion entirely within the interrupt handler.

I've already posted presentation about those features (*) to netdev.
Some ideas looks interesting enough to be implemented in Linux.

* http://people.freebsd.org/~andre/FreeBSD-5.3-Networking.pdf

--
Tomasz Torcz To co nierealne - tutaj jest normalne.
[email protected] Ziomale na ?ycie maj? tu patenty specjalne.