Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 20:32:38 +0200 From: "Eivind Hestnes" <eivind@stabbursmoen.no> To: <performance@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Performance Intel Pro 1000 MT (PWLA8490MT) Message-ID: <20050419183335.F18008131@joshua.stabbursmoen.no>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi, I have an Intel Pro 1000 MT (PWLA8490MT) NIC (em(4) driver 1.7.35) installed in a Pentium III 500 Mhz with 512 MB RAM (100 Mhz) running FreeBSD 5.4-RC3. The machine is routing traffic between multiple VLANs. Recently I did a benchmark with/without device polling enabled. Without device polling I was able to transfer roughly 180 Mbit/s. The router however was suffering when doing this benchmark. Interrupt load was peaking 100% - overall the system itself was quite unusable (_very_ high system load). With device polling enabled the interrupt kept stable around 40-50% and max transfer rate was nearly 70 Mbit/s. Not very scientific tests, but it gave me a pin point. However, a Pentium III in combination with a good NIC should in my opinion be a respectful router.. but I'm not satisfied with the results. The pf ruleset is like nothing, and the kernel is stripped and customized for best performance. Any tweaking tips for making my router perform better? Debug information: eivind@core-gw:~$ sysctl -a | grep kern.polling kern.polling.burst: 150 kern.polling.each_burst: 5 kern.polling.burst_max: 150 kern.polling.idle_poll: 0 kern.polling.poll_in_trap: 0 kern.polling.user_frac: 50 kern.polling.reg_frac: 20 kern.polling.short_ticks: 1411 kern.polling.lost_polls: 720 kern.polling.pending_polls: 0 kern.polling.residual_burst: 0 kern.polling.handlers: 0 kern.polling.enable: 1 kern.polling.phase: 0 kern.polling.suspect: 186 kern.polling.stalled: 0 kern.polling.idlepoll_sleeping: 1 eivind@core-gw:~$ cat /etc/sysctl.conf net.inet.ip.forwarding=1 net.inet.ip.fastforwarding=1 net.inet.carp.preempt=1 kern.polling.enable=1 HZ set to 1000 as recommended in README for the em(4) driver. Driver is of cource compiled into kernel. Regards, Eivind Hestnes
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20050419183335.F18008131>