2002-12-31 16:26:55

by Florian Weimer

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Subject: NIC with polling support

Dear all,

I guess I'm severe need of a 100BaseTX NIC with polling support in the
driver.

A special application requires processing of 40,000 packets/second or
more, and the interrupt load currently kills the machine (i.e. no
scheduling during peak load).

Any suggestions which card I should use? The driver has to be open
source, and the card shouldn't be too expensive (i.e. in the usual
price range of brand 100BaseTX NICs).

Thanks,
--
Florian Weimer [email protected]
University of Stuttgart http://CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE/people/fw/
RUS-CERT fax +49-711-685-5898


2002-12-31 17:52:14

by Ion Badulescu

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Subject: Re: NIC with polling support

On Tue, 31 Dec 2002 17:35:19 +0100, Florian Weimer <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I guess I'm severe need of a 100BaseTX NIC with polling support in the
> driver.
>
> A special application requires processing of 40,000 packets/second or
> more, and the interrupt load currently kills the machine (i.e. no
> scheduling during peak load).
>
> Any suggestions which card I should use? The driver has to be open
> source, and the card shouldn't be too expensive (i.e. in the usual
> price range of brand 100BaseTX NICs).

As far as I can tell, no driver in 2.4 supports NAPI (aka polling support)
with the exception of the tg3 driver -- but that's a GigE card.

The Adapter DuraLAN/Starfire driver (which I maintain) has been modified to
support NAPI, but those changes have not yet been included in the official
kernel. I can mail you the patch, if you want to give it a try. The cards
are on the expensive side, but not overly so (about $100/port).

Ion

--
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool,
than to open it and remove all doubt.

2002-12-31 18:59:49

by Jason Lunz

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Subject: Re: NIC with polling support

[email protected] said:
> Any suggestions which card I should use? The driver has to be open
> source, and the card shouldn't be too expensive (i.e. in the usual
> price range of brand 100BaseTX NICs).

linux 2.4.20 supports NAPI for tg3 only. I have patches for e1000,
3c59x, tulip, and eepro100 at:

http://gtf.org/lunz/linux/net/

The tulip patch might be a bit outdated. The only one of these patches
that I've personally tested extensively is e1000, and it works well
under extremely high interrupt load. e1000 cards are getting cheap
enough to be considered as 100BaseTX NICs, and they perform well doing
that.

Napi patches also exist for dl2k and a few other drivers, but I'm not
sure where.

Jason


2003-01-01 00:19:00

by Florian Weimer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: NIC with polling support

Jason Lunz <[email protected]> writes:

> [email protected] said:
>> Any suggestions which card I should use? The driver has to be open
>> source, and the card shouldn't be too expensive (i.e. in the usual
>> price range of brand 100BaseTX NICs).
>
> linux 2.4.20 supports NAPI for tg3 only. I have patches for e1000,
> 3c59x, tulip, and eepro100 at:

Thanks, the 3c59x patches are interesting, but they contain a few
_very_ discouraging comments. :-(

I might give the e100 patches a try, or borrow/buy an e1000 card--does
a "PRO/1000 MT Desktop Adapter" do it?

If I go the e100 route, does it matter much which chip the card is
built around? (The CPU Saver feature seems to be available only on
82558/9, and I haven't found those yet.)

--
Florian Weimer [email protected]
University of Stuttgart http://CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE/people/fw/
RUS-CERT fax +49-711-685-5898

2003-01-01 00:25:36

by Florian Weimer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: NIC with polling support

Jason Lunz <[email protected]> writes:

[snip]

Sorry for writing this publicly, but maybe Jason can read it this way:

[email protected]
SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:<[email protected]>:
host temp123.org [128.61.35.118]: 554 <[email protected]>:
Recipient address rejected: Relay access denied


Jason, you might want to fix this...

--
Florian Weimer [email protected]
University of Stuttgart http://CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE/people/fw/
RUS-CERT fax +49-711-685-5898