Re: Device polling, kern.polling.burst_max and gig-e

From: Luigi Rizzo (rizzo_at_icir.org)
Date: 01/30/04

  • Next message: Mike Hunter: "Re: Assymetric results from iperf across gigabit link (long)"
    Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:50:57 -0800
    To: Steve Francis <steve@expertcity.com>
    
    

    On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 10:46:06AM -0800, Steve Francis wrote:
    ...
    > No tuning of
    >
    > kern.polling.each_burst recommended?

    on a fast box maybe you can bring it up to 10-15, not clear that
    it will give a lot of performance gain, though.

            cheers
            luigi

    >
    > >If you are having a lot of load, it is natural that you are
    > >going to get losses, the 2sec period is probably how often the
    > >nic updates the stats.
    > >
    > > cheers
    > > luigi
    > >
    > >On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 10:34:08AM -0800, Steve Francis wrote:
    > >
    > >
    > >>We have a 4.9-RELEASE-p1 box dedicated to some traffic analysis. It
    > >>monitors on two em interfaces: about 200,000 pps on one interface, and
    > >>180,000 pps on the other.
    > >>It's been dealing with that OK, but our traffic levels are increasing -
    > >>we reached over 240,000 pps on one interface last week. This made CPU
    > >>reach 100%, and some packets not get processed.
    > >>So, last night we enabled polling on the nics.
    > >>Initially, great result - CPU dropped from 82% load (45% system load due
    > >>to interupts) yesterday to 55% load today (12% in system), for same pps
    > >>load (about 300,000 pps total) at the time.
    > >>
    > >>However, input errors went from 0 to about 1200 (oddly, it was 1200
    > >>every other second, and 0 for the seconds in-between.)
    > >>
    > >>A bit of digging around led me to increase kern.polling.burst_max.
    > >>According to http://info.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/polling/, "The default
    > >>value is enough for a 100Mbit ethernet". I increased it gradually to
    > >>900, whcih has almost (but not entirely) eliminated the errors. Now the
    > >>errors are zero for most intervals, but every 10 or so intervals there
    > >>are between 10 and 100 input errors.
    > >>
    > >>So:
    > >>- does it make sense to leave the default at 150, in this day of gigabit
    > >>nics?
    > >>- is there a danger in increasing the burt_max? (My burst size goes
    > >>straight to the max of 900.)
    > >>- can it be increased more ?
    > >>- are there other variables that make sense to increase for gigabit?
    > >>(like kern.polling.each_burst:?)
    > >>
    > >>Since I increased the burst max, I now have slowly incrementing
    > >>kern.polling.lost_polls - about 1 every 2 seconds. Anything to worry about?
    > >>
    > >>Thanks
    > >>Steve Francis
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>_______________________________________________
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    > >>http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-net
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    > >>
    > >>
    >
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  • Next message: Mike Hunter: "Re: Assymetric results from iperf across gigabit link (long)"

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