From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 20 15:35:14 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A63FCF0C for ; Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:35:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jfretby@googlemail.com) Received: from mail-qc0-f182.google.com (mail-qc0-f182.google.com [209.85.216.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 530D08FC12 for ; Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:35:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-qc0-f182.google.com with SMTP id k19so5154938qcs.13 for ; Tue, 20 Nov 2012 07:35:13 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=vzkdWNqkn5VpU6VCMBCvWSnt2v2WQdvo/5MjeMOQ6yw=; b=f7IbwCsVfUVIaLRXHHx1FCix9G+jB79owyhiOifHJum2Nl0R6sEzITqyJaLPpYHpAm C1mzd14I/0wAPUa3jc6rc1HUE91keFHFK1wpuJi2xB9TulhA9FkpCpQLqv1j6laZykNy W8ZUhBd+Zs43bOlmGLEcAMEn+Gdp55sFr9i96YIFFpTIP+R+mzWFyQdhCqcGf4LkBhwQ 94B1E+XAkPXZqUyxaNqcv4EMWdgDM8ZtjpQ00TU7JETk9NPFwrPEZIFjEC3YCd40NG+m Vh62UUAaynQi7AfOtPVzL8GgXzmjnrh0kjuJyfAWW8c8iz+8N0tKGr837Js0fsD0QGa0 GvZA== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.114.201 with SMTP id f9mr268147qcq.33.1353425713459; Tue, 20 Nov 2012 07:35:13 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.49.25.13 with HTTP; Tue, 20 Nov 2012 07:35:13 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:35:13 +0000 Message-ID: Subject: FreeBSD boxes as a 'router'... From: John Fretby To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.14 X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:35:14 -0000 Howdy all, We've currently got an ageing HP DL360 running as a 'router' - it has 100Mbit in/out onto our network, and has two 'bce' NIC's providing in/out. It's running quite an old version of FreeBSD (6 I think) - but works. As the network gets busier we've noticed the amount of interrupt time on it is climbing (as you'd expect - i.e. esp. if many small packets are being forwarded). Many moons ago we did experiment with this box - and enabled device polling (inc. upping the HZ on the box and recompiling the kernel etc). This didn't work very well at the time (probably because it was in it's infancy) so we left it off in the end. If we were to replace this box, with something new - say a SuperMicro based system with two: Intel 82574L's (em Driver Based) And enable polling - is it likely to "just work" these days? The current upstream is 100Mbit, we're looking to upgrade this to 1Gbit in, but with say 200Mbit comitted on it (so shouldn't go above 200Mbit). Is there anything that has to be done to enable polling - other than recompiling GENERIC to support it? - i.e. no HZ hacks or anything needed on 'modern' machines (it's a quad core Xeon). Cheers, Jon.