From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 29 00:26:28 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1316216A4CE for ; Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:26:28 +0000 (GMT) Received: from pi.codefab.com (pi.codefab.com [199.103.21.227]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A995643D31 for ; Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:26:27 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from [192.168.1.250] (pool-68-161-115-118.ny325.east.verizon.net [68.161.115.118]) by pi.codefab.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iAT0QITM066364 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Sun, 28 Nov 2004 19:26:19 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <41AA6CA9.6020008@mac.com> Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 19:26:17 -0500 From: Chuck Swiger Organization: The Courts of Chaos User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Andrew Seguin References: <007f01c4d3b2$12597af0$cad435a1@mojlaptop> In-Reply-To: <007f01c4d3b2$12597af0$cad435a1@mojlaptop> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.86.1.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.6 required=5.5 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=2.64 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.64 (2004-01-11) on pi.codefab.com cc: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 5.3 Networking performance problem X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:26:28 -0000 Andrew Seguin wrote: > We have about 100 computers active, generating a stream of approximately > 80-90K packets per minute for a load I estimate* to be a little under > 10Mbps. Overall the firewall will need to filter for a /24 subnet. OK. > *Configuration: > Hardware: > The firewall is a Celeron 900Mhz with 128MB ram (more on the way) with one > rl and one sis based network cards. My first suggestion would be to bin the rl NIC and replace it with an fxp or dc-based NIC. Realtek NICs are infamous for working poorly or not working reliably at all under load. [ ... ] > I then tested with the whole school going through the firewall: very bad. > packets were being droped and ping times were around 600ms. Internet was > pretty much unuseable. This report sounds consistent, although you could also have a bad cable or switch port, too. It would be useful to you to look into the output of "netstat -i" and "netstat -s", and any statistics which might be available on your switches (if they have management & per-port stats). -- -Chuck