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Date:      Thu, 8 Aug 2019 10:13:24 -0700
From:      Freddie Cash <fjwcash@gmail.com>
To:        freebsd-ports <freebsd-ports@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Any alternatives to NONE cipher ssh or bbcp for gigabit+ zfs send/recv?
Message-ID:  <CAOjFWZ6yummc09ypJbxvKQvzhk=vt2HzxBuhYW_qoNEgtPVS_Q@mail.gmail.com>

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We have gigabit fibre between our main data centre and our off-site data
centre across town.  We do zfs send/recv of our backups between the sites
over a dedicated gigabit fibre link.  Our ZFS storage servers are running
older AMD Opteron (pre-bulldozer) CPUs, so there's very little in the way
of encryption extension support.

Running zfs send/recv over regular SSH gives horrible throughput (100-250
Mbps max).

In the past, we compiled the openssh-portable port with the HPN patches and
NONE cipher.  That allowed us to saturate the gigabit link for zfs
send/recv and rsync transfers.  Then those were removed from the port and
base OpenSSH.  (There were patches floating around for awhile, but we try
not to build from source anymore.)

Then we found bbcp, which works great for the zfs send/recv process,
saturating the gigabit link.  Doesn't work for rsync, but that's okay (we
only use rsync for our regular backup process, and that's limited by the
remote school's Internet link).

An update [1] to the bbcp port broke some things, but we found the magical
combination of command-line options to make it work reliably in our
environment.  And a project was underway to update bbcp [2] to a newer
version and make it work better on FreeBSD, but it fizzled out.  And now
the bbcp port has been removed.

We have an archived copy of the bbcp package that works for us on FreeBSD
12 (amd64).  We'll continue to use that as long as it works (probably until
FBSD 12 is EoL).

Are there any alternatives to HPN/NONE cipher / bbcp to allow an older
Opteron system to saturate a gigabit link with zfs send/recv or rsync?
This is strictly over a private network, so encryption is only needed for
the authentication bit, not for the actual data transfer.  Preferably
something that's available in the ports tree as a binary package.  :)

Suggestions?

[1] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=197035
[2] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=229115

(Thanks to all who attempted to keep bbcp working on FreeBSD.  Sounds like
it wasn't much fun, but we really appreciate the effort.)

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash@gmail.com



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