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Date:      Wed, 3 Feb 2016 13:37:21 +0000
From:      "Meyer, Wolfgang" <wolfgang.meyer@hob.de>
To:        "'freebsd-net@FreeBSD.org'" <freebsd-net@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        "'freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.org'" <freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   ixgbe: Network performance tuning (#TCP connections)
Message-ID:  <EC88118611AE564AB0B10C6A4569004D0137D57AEB@HOBEX11.hob.de>

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Hello,

we are evaluating network performance on a DELL-Server (PowerEdge R930 with=
 4 Sockets, hw.model: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E7-8891 v3 @ 2.80GHz) with 10 Gb=
E-Cards. We use programs that on server side accepts connections on a IP-ad=
dress+port from the client side and after establishing the connection data =
is sent in turns between server and client in a predefined pattern (server =
side sends more data than client side) with sleeps in between the send phas=
es. The test set-up is chosen in such way that every client process initiat=
es 500 connections handled in threads and on the server side each process r=
epresenting an IP/Port pair also handles 500 connections in threads.

The number of connections is then increased and the overall network througp=
ut is observed using nload. On FreeBSD (on server side) roughly at 50,000 c=
onnections errors begin to occur and the overall throughput won't increase =
further with more connections. With Linux on the server side it is possible=
 to establish more than 120,000 connections and at 50,000 connections the o=
verall throughput ist double that of FreeBSD with the same sending pattern.=
 Furthermore system load on FreeBSD is much higher with 50 % system usage o=
n each core and 80 % interrupt usage on the 8 cores handling the interrupt =
queues for the NIC. In comparison Linux has <10 % system usage, <10 % user =
usage and about 15 % interrupt usage on the 16 cores handling the network i=
nterrupts for 50,000 connections.

Varying the numbers for the NIC interrupt queues won't change the performan=
ce (rather worsens the situation). Disabling Hyperthreading (utilising 40 c=
ores) degrades the performance. Increasing MAXCPU to utilise all 80 cores w=
on't improve compared to 64 cores, atkbd and uart had to be disabled to avo=
id kernel panics with increased MAXCPU (thanks to Andre Oppermann for inves=
tigating this). Initiallly the tests were made on 10.2 Release, later I swi=
tched to 10 Stable (later with ixgbe driver version 3.1.0) but that didn't =
change the numbers.

Some sysctl configurables were modified along the network performance guide=
lines found on the net (e.g. https://calomel.org/freebsd_network_tuning.htm=
l, https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/configtuning-kernel-limits.html, ht=
tps://pleiades.ucsc.edu/hyades/FreeBSD_Network_Tuning) but most of them did=
n't have any measuarable impact. Final sysctl.conf and loader.conf settings=
 see below. Actually the only tunables that provided any improvement were i=
dentified to be hw.ix.txd, and hw.ix.rxd that were reduced (!) to the minim=
um value of 64 and hw.ix.tx_process_limit and hw.ix.rx_process_limit that w=
ere set to -1.

Any ideas what tunables might be changed to get a higher number of TCP conn=
ections (it's not a question of the overall throughput as changing the send=
ing pattern allows me to fully utilise the 10Gb bandwidth)? How can I deter=
mine where the kernel is spending its time that causes the high CPU load? A=
ny pointers are highly appreciated, I can't believe that there is such a bl=
atant difference in network performance compared to Linux.

Regards,
Wolfgang

<loader.conf>:
cc_htcp_load=3D"YES"
hw.ix.txd=3D"64"
hw.ix.rxd=3D"64"
hw.ix.tx_process_limit=3D"-1"
hw.ix.rx_process_limit=3D"-1"
hw.ix.num_queues=3D"8"
#hw.ix.enable_aim=3D"0"
#hw.ix.max_interrupt_rate=3D"31250"

#net.isr.maxthreads=3D"16"

<sysctl.conf>:
kern.ipc.soacceptqueue=3D1024

kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=3D16777216
net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_max=3D16777216
net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_max=3D16777216

net.inet.tcp.tso=3D0
net.inet.tcp.mssdflt=3D1460
net.inet.tcp.minmss=3D1300

net.inet.tcp.nolocaltimewait=3D1
net.inet.tcp.syncache.rexmtlimit=3D0

#net.inet.tcp.syncookies=3D0
net.inet.tcp.drop_synfin=3D1
net.inet.tcp.fast_finwait2_recycle=3D1

net.inet.tcp.icmp_may_rst=3D0
net.inet.tcp.msl=3D5000
net.inet.tcp.path_mtu_discovery=3D0
net.inet.tcp.blackhole=3D1
net.inet.udp.blackhole=3D1

net.inet.tcp.cc.algorithm=3Dhtcp
net.inet.tcp.cc.htcp.adaptive_backoff=3D1
net.inet.tcp.cc.htcp.rtt_scaling=3D1

net.inet.ip.forwarding=3D1
net.inet.ip.fastforwarding=3D1
net.inet.ip.rtexpire=3D1
net.inet.ip.rtminexpire=3D1




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