Re: 2.6.12 Performance problems

From: Ben Greear
Date: Wed Aug 24 2005 - 23:52:27 EST


Danial Thom wrote:

I think the concensus is that 2.6 has made trade
offs that lower raw throughput, which is what a
networking device needs. So as a router or
network appliance, 2.6 seems less suitable. A raw
bridging test on a 2.0Ghz operton system:

FreeBSD 4.9: Drops no packets at 900K pps
Linux 2.4.24: Starts dropping packets at 350K pps
Linux 2.6.12: Starts dropping packets at 100K pps

I ran some quick tests using kernel 2.6.11, 1ms tick (HZ=1000), SMP kernel.
Hardware is P-IV 3.0Ghz + HT on a new SuperMicro motherboard with 64/133Mhz
PCI-X bus. NIC is dual Intel pro/1000. Kernel is close to stock 2.6.11.

I used brctl to create a bridge with the two GigE adapters in it and
used pktgen to stream traffic through it (250kpps in one direction, 1kpps in
the other.)

I see a reasonable amount of drops at 250kpps (60 byte packets):
about 60,000,000 packets received, 20,700 dropped.

Interestingly, the system is about 60% idle according to top,
and still dropping pkts, so it would seem that the system could
be better utilized!

Ben

--
Ben Greear <greearb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Candela Technologies Inc http://www.candelatech.com

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