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Date:      Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:41:56 +1000 (EST)
From:      Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au>
To:        Soren Dreijer <dreijer+bsd@echobit.net>
Cc:        freebsd-ipfw@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Significant network latency when using ipfw and in-kernel NAT
Message-ID:  <20120913221758.E51539@sola.nimnet.asn.au>
In-Reply-To: <CALoZf3hfZDQQ4ZEXMrGUkYiGvb5QPoAcbpUikAq1adqVY4fLyg@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <CALoZf3hfZDQQ4ZEXMrGUkYiGvb5QPoAcbpUikAq1adqVY4fLyg@mail.gmail.com>

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On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 23:09:27 -0500, Soren Dreijer wrote:
 > Hi there,
 > 
 > We're running freebsd 9.0-RELEASE on a box whose primary purpose is to
 > act as a firewall and a gateway. Up until today, we've been using ipfw
 > in conjunction with natd and the divert action in ipfw to forward
 > packets between the freebsd box (i.e. the public Internet) and our
 > private servers.
 > 
 > Unfortunately, natd appears to be quite the CPU hog and we therefore
 > decided to switch to the in-kernel NAT support in ipfw. The issue
 > we're running in to is that the network latency appears to be
 > skyrocketing when ipfw contains nat rules. Basically all TCP traffic
 > originating from the box times out and pinging google.com on the box
 > gives an average of ~10 SECONDS -- and that's even if I explicitly
 > allow all ICMP traffic before the packets even get to the nat rules in
 > ipfw.
 > 
 > The really odd part, however, is that I can ping the freebsd box just
 > fine externally. For instance, pinging the server from my home
 > connection gives an average of 45 ms. I'm also able to communicate
 > just fine with the internal servers through the freebsd box.
 > 
 > Does anybody have any idea what's going on? I assume I must've
 > misconfigured something big here...

Or maybe only something small .. but without seeing your basic ruleset 
and network config - obscured as need be - we can only guess.  Maybe an 
'ifconfig', 'ipfw show' and 'ipfw nat show config' would illustrate?

cheers, Ian



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