thr3ads.net - freebsd stable - serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem [Nov 2004]

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Emanuel Strobl

2004-Nov-17 14:58 UTC

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

Dear best guys,

I really love 5.3 in many ways but here're some unbelievable transfer rates,
after I went out and bought a pair of Intel GigaBit Ethernet Cards to solve 
my performance problem (*laugh*):

(In short, see *** below)

Tests were done with two Intel GigaBit Ethernet cards (82547EI, 32bit PCI 
Desktop adapter MT) connected directly without a switch/hub and "device 
polling" compiled into a custom kernel with HZ set to 256 and 
kern.polling.enabled set to "1":

LOCAL:
(/samsung is ufs2 on /dev/ad4p1, a SAMSUNG SP080N2)
 test3:~#7: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
 ^C10524+0 records in
 10524+0 records out
 172425216 bytes transferred in 3.284735 secs (52492882 bytes/sec)
->
                                                 ^^^^^^^^ ~ 52MB/s
NFS(udp,polling):
(/samsung is nfs on test3:/samsung, via em0, x-over, polling enabled)
 test2:/#21: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
 ^C1858+0 records in
 1857+0 records out
 30425088 bytes transferred in 8.758475 secs (3473788 bytes/sec)
->                                                ^^^^^^^ ~ 3,4MB/s

This example shows that using NFS over GigaBit Ethernet decimates performance 
by the factor of 15, in words fifteen!

GGATE with MTU 16114 and polling:
 test2:/dev#28: ggatec create 10.0.0.2 /dev/ad4p1
 ggate0
 test2:/dev#29: mount /dev/ggate0 /samsung/
 test2:/dev#30: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
 ^C2564+0 records in
 2563+0 records out
 41992192 bytes transferred in 15.908581 secs (2639594 bytes/sec)
->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~ 2,6MB/s

GGATE without polling and MTU 16114:
 test2:~#12: ggatec create 10.0.0.2 /dev/ad4p1
 ggate0
 test2:~#13: mount /dev/ggate0 /samsung/
 test2:~#14: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=128k
 ^C1282+0 records in
 1281+0 records out
 167903232 bytes transferred in 11.274768 secs (14891945 bytes/sec)
->                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 15MB/s
.....and with 1m blocksize:
 test2:~#17: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=1m
 ^C61+0 records in
 60+0 records out
 62914560 bytes transferred in 4.608726 secs (13651182 bytes/sec)
->                                                ^^^^^^^^ ~ 13,6MB/s

I can't imagine why there seems to be a absolute limit of 15MB/s that can be
transfered over the network
But it's even worse, here two excerpts of NFS (udp) with jumbo Frames 
(mtu=16114):
 test2:~#23: mount 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
 test2:~#24: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=1m
 ^C89+0 records in
 88+0 records out
 92274688 bytes transferred in 13.294708 secs (6940708 bytes/sec)
->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~7MB/s
.....and with 64k blocksize:
 test2:~#25: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
 ^C848+0 records in
 847+0 records out
 55508992 bytes transferred in 8.063415 secs (6884055 bytes/sec)

And with TCP-NFS (and Jumbo Frames):
 test2:~#30: mount_nfs -T 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
 test2:~#31: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
 ^C1921+0 records in
 1920+0 records out
 125829120 bytes transferred in 7.461226 secs (16864403 bytes/sec)
->                                                 ^^^^^^^^ ~ 17MB/s

Again NFS (udp) but with MTU 1500:
 test2:~#9: mount_nfs 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
 test2:~#10: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=8k
 ^C12020+0 records in
 12019+0 records out
 98459648 bytes transferred in 10.687460 secs (9212633 bytes/sec)
->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~ 10MB/s
And TCP-NFS with MTU 1500:
 test2:~#12: mount_nfs -T 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
 test2:~#13: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=8k
 ^C19352+0 records in
 19352+0 records out
 158531584 bytes transferred in 12.093529 secs (13108794 bytes/sec)
->                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 13MB/s

GGATE with default MTU of 1500, polling disabled:
 test2:~#14: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
 ^C971+0 records in
 970+0 records out
 63569920 bytes transferred in 6.274578 secs (10131346 bytes/sec)
->                                                ^^^^^^^^ ~ 10M/s


Conclusion:

***

- It seems that GEOM_GATE is less efficient with GigaBit (em) than NFS via TCP 
is.

- em seems to have problems with MTU greater than 1500

- UDP seems to have performance disadvantages over TCP regarding NFS which 
should be vice versa AFAIK

- polling and em (GbE) with HZ=256 is definitly no good idea, even 10Base-2 
can compete

- NFS over TCP with MTU of 16114 gives the maximum transferrate for large 
files over GigaBit Ethernet with a value of 17MB/s, a quarter of what I'd 
expect with my test equipment.

- overall network performance (regarding large file transfers) is horrible

Please, if anybody has the knowledge to dig into these problems, let me know 
if I can do any tests to help getting ggate and NFS useful in fast 5.3-stable 
environments.

Best regards,

-Harry
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Sean McNeil

2004-Nov-17 15:17 UTC

head link

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

On Wed, 2004-11-17 at 23:57 +0100, Emanuel Strobl wrote:> Dear best guys,
> 
> I really love 5.3 in many ways but here're some unbelievable transfer
rates,
> after I went out and bought a pair of Intel GigaBit Ethernet Cards to solve
> my performance problem (*laugh*):
> 
> (In short, see *** below)
> 
> Tests were done with two Intel GigaBit Ethernet cards (82547EI, 32bit PCI 
> Desktop adapter MT) connected directly without a switch/hub and
"device
> polling" compiled into a custom kernel with HZ set to 256 and 
> kern.polling.enabled set to "1":
> 
> LOCAL:
> (/samsung is ufs2 on /dev/ad4p1, a SAMSUNG SP080N2)
>  test3:~#7: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
>  ^C10524+0 records in
>  10524+0 records out
>  172425216 bytes transferred in 3.284735 secs (52492882 bytes/sec)
> ->
>                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 52MB/s
> NFS(udp,polling):
> (/samsung is nfs on test3:/samsung, via em0, x-over, polling enabled)
>  test2:/#21: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
>  ^C1858+0 records in
>  1857+0 records out
>  30425088 bytes transferred in 8.758475 secs (3473788 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                ^^^^^^^ ~ 3,4MB/s
> 
> This example shows that using NFS over GigaBit Ethernet decimates
performance
> by the factor of 15, in words fifteen!
> 
> GGATE with MTU 16114 and polling:
>  test2:/dev#28: ggatec create 10.0.0.2 /dev/ad4p1
>  ggate0
>  test2:/dev#29: mount /dev/ggate0 /samsung/
>  test2:/dev#30: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
>  ^C2564+0 records in
>  2563+0 records out
>  41992192 bytes transferred in 15.908581 secs (2639594 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~ 2,6MB/s
> 
> GGATE without polling and MTU 16114:
>  test2:~#12: ggatec create 10.0.0.2 /dev/ad4p1
>  ggate0
>  test2:~#13: mount /dev/ggate0 /samsung/
>  test2:~#14: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=128k
>  ^C1282+0 records in
>  1281+0 records out
>  167903232 bytes transferred in 11.274768 secs (14891945 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 15MB/s
> .....and with 1m blocksize:
>  test2:~#17: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=1m
>  ^C61+0 records in
>  60+0 records out
>  62914560 bytes transferred in 4.608726 secs (13651182 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                ^^^^^^^^ ~ 13,6MB/s
> 
> I can't imagine why there seems to be a absolute limit of 15MB/s that
can be
> transfered over the network
> But it's even worse, here two excerpts of NFS (udp) with jumbo Frames 
> (mtu=16114):
>  test2:~#23: mount 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#24: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=1m
>  ^C89+0 records in
>  88+0 records out
>  92274688 bytes transferred in 13.294708 secs (6940708 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~7MB/s
> .....and with 64k blocksize:
>  test2:~#25: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
>  ^C848+0 records in
>  847+0 records out
>  55508992 bytes transferred in 8.063415 secs (6884055 bytes/sec)
> 
> And with TCP-NFS (and Jumbo Frames):
>  test2:~#30: mount_nfs -T 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#31: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
>  ^C1921+0 records in
>  1920+0 records out
>  125829120 bytes transferred in 7.461226 secs (16864403 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^^ ~ 17MB/s
> 
> Again NFS (udp) but with MTU 1500:
>  test2:~#9: mount_nfs 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#10: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=8k
>  ^C12020+0 records in
>  12019+0 records out
>  98459648 bytes transferred in 10.687460 secs (9212633 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~ 10MB/s
> And TCP-NFS with MTU 1500:
>  test2:~#12: mount_nfs -T 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#13: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=8k
>  ^C19352+0 records in
>  19352+0 records out
>  158531584 bytes transferred in 12.093529 secs (13108794 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 13MB/s
> 
> GGATE with default MTU of 1500, polling disabled:
>  test2:~#14: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
>  ^C971+0 records in
>  970+0 records out
>  63569920 bytes transferred in 6.274578 secs (10131346 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                ^^^^^^^^ ~ 10M/s
> 
> 
> Conclusion:
> 
> ***
> 
> - It seems that GEOM_GATE is less efficient with GigaBit (em) than NFS via
TCP
> is.
> 
> - em seems to have problems with MTU greater than 1500
> 
> - UDP seems to have performance disadvantages over TCP regarding NFS which 
> should be vice versa AFAIK
> 
> - polling and em (GbE) with HZ=256 is definitly no good idea, even 10Base-2
> can compete
> 
> - NFS over TCP with MTU of 16114 gives the maximum transferrate for large 
> files over GigaBit Ethernet with a value of 17MB/s, a quarter of what
I'd
> expect with my test equipment.
> 
> - overall network performance (regarding large file transfers) is horrible
> 
> Please, if anybody has the knowledge to dig into these problems, let me
know
> if I can do any tests to help getting ggate and NFS useful in fast
5.3-stable
> environments.
I am very interested in this as I have similar issues with the re
driver.  It it horrible when operating at gigE vs. 100BT.  Have you
tried plugging the machines into a 100BT instead?

Cheers,
Sean

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Scott Long

2004-Nov-17 15:33 UTC

head link

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

Emanuel Strobl wrote:> Dear best guys,
> 
> I really love 5.3 in many ways but here're some unbelievable transfer
rates,
> after I went out and bought a pair of Intel GigaBit Ethernet Cards to solve
> my performance problem (*laugh*):
> 
> (In short, see *** below)
> 
> Tests were done with two Intel GigaBit Ethernet cards (82547EI, 32bit PCI 
> Desktop adapter MT) connected directly without a switch/hub and
"device
> polling" compiled into a custom kernel with HZ set to 256 and 
> kern.polling.enabled set to "1":
> 
> LOCAL:
> (/samsung is ufs2 on /dev/ad4p1, a SAMSUNG SP080N2)
>  test3:~#7: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
>  ^C10524+0 records in
>  10524+0 records out
>  172425216 bytes transferred in 3.284735 secs (52492882 bytes/sec)
> ->
>                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 52MB/s
> NFS(udp,polling):
> (/samsung is nfs on test3:/samsung, via em0, x-over, polling enabled)
>  test2:/#21: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
>  ^C1858+0 records in
>  1857+0 records out
>  30425088 bytes transferred in 8.758475 secs (3473788 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                ^^^^^^^ ~ 3,4MB/s
> 
> This example shows that using NFS over GigaBit Ethernet decimates
performance
> by the factor of 15, in words fifteen!
> 
> GGATE with MTU 16114 and polling:
>  test2:/dev#28: ggatec create 10.0.0.2 /dev/ad4p1
>  ggate0
>  test2:/dev#29: mount /dev/ggate0 /samsung/
>  test2:/dev#30: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=16k
>  ^C2564+0 records in
>  2563+0 records out
>  41992192 bytes transferred in 15.908581 secs (2639594 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~ 2,6MB/s
> 
> GGATE without polling and MTU 16114:
>  test2:~#12: ggatec create 10.0.0.2 /dev/ad4p1
>  ggate0
>  test2:~#13: mount /dev/ggate0 /samsung/
>  test2:~#14: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=128k
>  ^C1282+0 records in
>  1281+0 records out
>  167903232 bytes transferred in 11.274768 secs (14891945 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 15MB/s
> .....and with 1m blocksize:
>  test2:~#17: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=1m
>  ^C61+0 records in
>  60+0 records out
>  62914560 bytes transferred in 4.608726 secs (13651182 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                ^^^^^^^^ ~ 13,6MB/s
> 
> I can't imagine why there seems to be a absolute limit of 15MB/s that
can be
> transfered over the network
> But it's even worse, here two excerpts of NFS (udp) with jumbo Frames 
> (mtu=16114):
>  test2:~#23: mount 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#24: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=1m
>  ^C89+0 records in
>  88+0 records out
>  92274688 bytes transferred in 13.294708 secs (6940708 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~7MB/s
> .....and with 64k blocksize:
>  test2:~#25: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
>  ^C848+0 records in
>  847+0 records out
>  55508992 bytes transferred in 8.063415 secs (6884055 bytes/sec)
> 
> And with TCP-NFS (and Jumbo Frames):
>  test2:~#30: mount_nfs -T 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#31: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
>  ^C1921+0 records in
>  1920+0 records out
>  125829120 bytes transferred in 7.461226 secs (16864403 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^^ ~ 17MB/s
> 
> Again NFS (udp) but with MTU 1500:
>  test2:~#9: mount_nfs 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#10: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=8k
>  ^C12020+0 records in
>  12019+0 records out
>  98459648 bytes transferred in 10.687460 secs (9212633 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                 ^^^^^^^ ~ 10MB/s
> And TCP-NFS with MTU 1500:
>  test2:~#12: mount_nfs -T 10.0.0.2:/samsung /samsung/
>  test2:~#13: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=8k
>  ^C19352+0 records in
>  19352+0 records out
>  158531584 bytes transferred in 12.093529 secs (13108794 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                  ^^^^^^^^ ~ 13MB/s
> 
> GGATE with default MTU of 1500, polling disabled:
>  test2:~#14: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=64k
>  ^C971+0 records in
>  970+0 records out
>  63569920 bytes transferred in 6.274578 secs (10131346 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                ^^^^^^^^ ~ 10M/s
> 
> 
> Conclusion:
> 
> ***
> 
> - It seems that GEOM_GATE is less efficient with GigaBit (em) than NFS via
TCP
> is.
> 
> - em seems to have problems with MTU greater than 1500
> 
> - UDP seems to have performance disadvantages over TCP regarding NFS which 
> should be vice versa AFAIK
> 
> - polling and em (GbE) with HZ=256 is definitly no good idea, even 10Base-2
> can compete
You should be setting HZ to 1000 or higher.
> 
> - NFS over TCP with MTU of 16114 gives the maximum transferrate for large 
> files over GigaBit Ethernet with a value of 17MB/s, a quarter of what
I'd
> expect with my test equipment.
> 
> - overall network performance (regarding large file transfers) is horrible
> 
> Please, if anybody has the knowledge to dig into these problems, let me
know
> if I can do any tests to help getting ggate and NFS useful in fast
5.3-stable
> environments.
if_em in 5.3 has a large performance penalty in the common case due to a
programming error.  I fixed it in 6-CURRENT and 5.3-STABLE.  You might
want to try updating to the RELENG_5 branch to see if you get better
results.

Scott

Chuck Swiger

2004-Nov-17 16:02 UTC

head link

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

Emanuel Strobl wrote:
[ ... ]> Tests were done with two Intel GigaBit Ethernet cards (82547EI, 32bit PCI 
> Desktop adapter MT) connected directly without a switch/hub
If filesharing via NFS is your primary goal, it's reasonable to test that, 
however it would be easier to make sense of your results by testing your 
network hardware at a lower level.  Since you're already running
portmap/RPC,
consider using spray to blast some packets rapidly and see what kind of 
bandwidth you max out using that.  Or use ping with -i & -s set to
reasonable
values depending on whether you're using jumbo frames or not.

If the problem is your connection is dropping a few packets, this will show up 
better here.  Using "ping -f" is also a pretty good troubleshooter. 
If you
can dig up a gigabit switch with management capabilities to test with, taking 
a look at the per-port statistics for errors would also be worth doing.  A 
dodgy network cable can still work well enough for the cards to have a green 
link light, but fail to handle high traffic properly.

[ ... ]> - em seems to have problems with MTU greater than 1500
Have you tried using an MTU of 3K or 7K?

I also seem to recall that there were performance problems with em in 5.3 and 
a fix is being tested in -CURRENT.  [I just saw Scott's response to the
list,
and your answer, so maybe nevermind this point.]
> - UDP seems to have performance disadvantages over TCP regarding NFS which 
> should be vice versa AFAIK
Hmm, yeah...again, this makes me wonder whether you are dropping packets.
NFS over TCP does better than UDP does in lossy network conditions.
> - polling and em (GbE) with HZ=256 is definitly no good idea, even 10Base-2
> can compete
You should be setting HZ to 1000, 2000, or so when using polling, and a higher 
HZ is definitely recommmended when you add in jumbo frames and GB speeds.

-- 
-Chuck

PS: followup-to set to reduce crossposting...

Mike Jakubik

2004-Nov-17 17:48 UTC

head link

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

Emanuel Strobl said:
                                       ^^^^^^^^ ~ 15MB/s> .....and with 1m blocksize:
>  test2:~#17: dd if=/dev/zero of=/samsung/testfile bs=1m
>  ^C61+0 records in
>  60+0 records out
>  62914560 bytes transferred in 4.608726 secs (13651182 bytes/sec)
> ->                                                ^^^^^^^^ ~ 13,6MB/s
>
> I can't imagine why there seems to be a absolute limit of 15MB/s that
can
> be
> transfered over the network
I have two PCs connected together, using the em card. One is FreeBSD 6
from Fri Nov  5 , the other is Windows XP. I am using the default mtu of
1500, no polling, and i get ~ 21MB/s tranfser rates via ftp. Im sure this
would be higher with jumbo frames. Both computers are AMD cpus with Via
chipsets. Perhaps its your hard drive that cant keep up?

Andreas Braukmann

2004-Nov-18 00:02 UTC

head link

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

--On Mittwoch, 17. November 2004 20:48 Uhr -0500 Mike Jakubik
<mikej@rogers.com> wrote:
> I have two PCs connected together, using the em card. One is FreeBSD 6
> from Fri Nov  5 , the other is Windows XP. I am using the default mtu of
> 1500, no polling, and i get ~ 21MB/s tranfser rates via ftp. Im sure this
> would be higher with jumbo frames.
probably
> Both computers are AMD cpus with Via
> chipsets.
Which AMD Chipset? VIA did some pretty bad PCI implementations
in the past. Once I wondered about suspiciously low transfer
rates in the process of testing 3Ware and Adaptec (2120S, 2200S)
RAID-Controllers. The transfer rates maxed out at ca. 30 MByte/s.
Switching the testboxes mainboard from one with VIA chipset to
one with  an AMD (MP / MPX) chipset was a great success.

-Andreas

Pawel Jakub Dawidek

2004-Nov-18 01:43 UTC

head link

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 11:57:41PM +0100, Emanuel Strobl wrote:
+> Dear best guys,
+> 
+> I really love 5.3 in many ways but here're some unbelievable transfer
rates,
+> after I went out and bought a pair of Intel GigaBit Ethernet Cards to
solve
+> my performance problem (*laugh*):
[...]

I done some test in the past with ggate and PCI64/GBit NICs and I get
~38MB/s AFAIR.

Remember that when using 32bit PCIs you can get transfer about 500Mbit/s.

Please run those test with netperf (/usr/ports/benchmarks/netperf) and
send results.

-- 
Pawel Jakub Dawidek                       http://www.FreeBSD.org
pjd@FreeBSD.org                           http://garage.freebsd.pl
FreeBSD committer                         Am I Evil? Yes, I Am!
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Robert Watson

2004-Nov-18 04:29 UTC

head link

serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Emanuel Strobl wrote:
> I really love 5.3 in many ways but here're some unbelievable transfer
> rates, after I went out and bought a pair of Intel GigaBit Ethernet
> Cards to solve my performance problem (*laugh*): 
I think the first thing you want to do is to try and determine whether the
problem is a link layer problem, network layer problem, or application
(file sharing) layer problem.  Here's where I'd start looking:

(1) I'd first off check that there wasn't a serious interrupt problem on
    the box, which is often triggered by ACPI problems.  Get the box to be
    as idle as possible, and then use vmstat -i or stat -vmstat to see if
    anything is spewing interrupts. 

(2) Confirm that your hardware is capable of the desired rates: typically
    this involves looking at whether you have a decent card (most if_em
    cards are decent), whether it's 32-bit or 64-bit PCI, and so on.  For
    unidirectional send on 32-bit PCI, be aware that it is not possible to
    achieve gigabit performance because the PCI bus isn't fast enough, for
    example.

(3) Next, I'd use a tool like netperf (see ports collection) to establish
    three characteristics: round trip latency from user space to user
    space (UDP_RR), TCP throughput (TCP_STREAM), and large packet
    throughput (UDP_STREAM).  With decent boxes on 5.3, you should have no
    trouble at all maxing out a single gig-e with if_em, assuming all is
    working well hardware wise and there's no software problem specific to
    your configuration.

(4) Note that router latency (and even switch latency) can have a
    substantial impact on gigabit performance, even with no packet loss,
    in part due to stuff like ethernet flow control.  You may want to put
    the two boxes back-to-back for testing purposes.

(5) Next, I'd measure CPU consumption on the end box -- in particular, use
    top -S and systat -vmstat 1 to compare the idle condition of the
    system and the system under load.

If you determine there is a link layer or IP layer problem, we can start
digging into things like the error statistics in the card, negotiation
issues, etc.  If not, you want to move up the stack to try and
characterize where it is you're hitting the performance issue.

Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert@fledge.watson.org      Principal Research Scientist, McAfee Research

Mike Jakubik

2004-Nov-18 08:44 UTC

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serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

Andreas Braukmann said:> --On Mittwoch, 17. November 2004 20:48 Uhr -0500 Mike Jakubik
> <mikej@rogers.com> wrote:
>
>> I have two PCs connected together, using the em card. One is FreeBSD 6
>> from Fri Nov  5 , the other is Windows XP. I am using the default mtu
of
>> 1500, no polling, and i get ~ 21MB/s tranfser rates via ftp. Im sure
>> this
>> would be higher with jumbo frames.
>
> probably
>
>> Both computers are AMD cpus with Via
>> chipsets.
>
> Which AMD Chipset? VIA did some pretty bad PCI implementations
> in the past. Once I wondered about suspiciously low transfer
> rates in the process of testing 3Ware and Adaptec (2120S, 2200S)
> RAID-Controllers. The transfer rates maxed out at ca. 30 MByte/s.
> Switching the testboxes mainboard from one with VIA chipset to
> one with  an AMD (MP / MPX) chipset was a great success.
The FreeBSD box is KT133A and Windows is KT266A. The VIA chipsets had
bandwith or latency (i cant remember) issues with the PCI bus. Perhaps you
are maxing out your PCI bus, or the HDs cant keep up?

Shunsuke SHINOMIYA

2004-Nov-19 02:18 UTC

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serious networking (em) performance (ggate and NFS) problem

Hi, Jeremie, how is this?
 To disable Interrupt Moderation, sysctl hw.em?.int_throttle_valve=0.

 However, because this patch is just made now, it is not fully tested.
> > if you suppose your computer has sufficient performance, please try to
> > disable or adjust parameters of Interrupt Moderation of em.
> 
> Nice !  It would be even better if there was a boot-time sysctl to
> configure the behaviour of this feature, or something like ifconfig
> link0 option of the fxp(4) driver.
-- 
Shunsuke SHINOMIYA <shino@fornext.org>
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