From: dwight@supercomputer.org
Subject: Re: RE: Linux client on Solaris 7 NFS server
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 09:11:01 -0800
Sender: nfs-admin@lists.sourceforge.net
Message-ID: <200401051711.i05HB1d15444@supercomputer.org>
References: <Charles.Lever@netapp.com>
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Cc: nfs@lists.sourceforge.net
To: "Lever, Charles" <Charles.Lever@netapp.com>
In-Reply-To: Message from "Lever, Charles" <Charles.Lever@netapp.com>
   of "Tue, 30 Dec 2003 09:58:27 PST." <482A3FA0050D21419C269D13989C6113020AC965@lavender-fe.eng.netapp.com>
Errors-To: nfs-admin@lists.sourceforge.net

Chareles Lever wrote:

> does "tcp,rsize2768,wsize2768" work?  the Linux defaults are
> UDP and r/wsize@96, which work adequately with Linux servers,
> but probably are trouble for Solaris.
> =

> which Linux kernels, specifically, have you tried on your clients?
> =

> what performance do you see, and what do you expect?

Well, yes, it works, but there's no noticeable performance =

improvement. I'll caveat that with the observation that this was in
a more complicated production environment. I haven't tried it yet
with V3 in a semi-isolated environment.

One of the more significant speed-ups I've noticed was with
completely turning off Version 3 NFS support in the kernel, and
forcing all transactions between Solaris and Linux to be Version 2.
Just specifying V2 as a mount option improves things a bit; but using
a 2.4.24-pre1 kernel without V3 support built in dropped the test
time from about 6 minutes to 3.0 minutes. Just specifying V2 as a =

mount option drops the performance from 6 minutes to 4 min, 45 seconds.

In comparision, the pure Linux server and client test ran about 30
seconds (UDP and TCP); and the pure Solaris environment ran about
the same. Mind you, the Solaris 8 systems are much slower CPU's in =

my test bed the same.  Mind you, the Solaris 8 systems are much =

slower CPU's in my test bed

Another rather interesting thing is that a Solaris client using a =

Linux server runs the test at the same speed as the pure Solaris or =

pure Linux environment. So this behaviour is specific to the =

Linux-client/Solaris-server situation.

As for what kind of results I was expecting, I was hoping for =

something comparable to the other 3 pairs of combinations. Perhaps =

even just double would be of use; but not a factor of 6.

As far as the kernels used, the same consistent results have been =

seen across the range of 2.4 kernels. Mostly the RH variations of =

2.4.18, but earlier ones as well, and right now I'm looking at the =

2.4.24 pre-releases. However, I will note that the one's prior to =

2.4.18 were done in the production environment, and not with some =

attempt at isolation.

Also, the problem seems unaffected by using the latest version of =

nfsutils.

The overall throughput seems to be pegged at about 11 Mbps IIRC. =

Googling shows that other people have also reported this issue over =

the years, and there is no clear solution.  =


So, in summary, this seems to be a constant issue with Linux/Solaris
interaction. There also seem to be be issues with V3 in this
environment.

Any suggestions and/or ideas would be welcome.

Best Regards,

        -dwight-


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