Re: Network performance issues when writing to disk (5.2.1-RELEASE)

From: Erik Rothwell (erik.rothwell_at_realityengine.ca)
Date: 08/17/04

  • Next message: Pawel Jakub Dawidek: "Re: RAID-3? (was: cvs commit: src MAINTAINERS)"
    Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:13:10 -0400
    To: Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org>
    
    

    On 8/12/04 11:17 AM, "Robert Watson" <rwatson@freebsd.org> wrote:

    > Did you replace it with another if_dc card, or with a card using a
    > different interface driver?

    Well, I took the afflicted box out of production this weekend for some
    further testing. After swapping out one of the if_dc NICs with an Intel card
    using the if_fxp driver, the problem no longer occurs on that interface.

    I can only reproduce the problem using an interface with the if_dc driver.
    The difference in performance is night and day.

    > - What sort of kernel configuration are you using -- GENERIC, or a custom
    > kernel, and if so, is it an SMP box and is SMP enabled in the kernel?

    This is a single processor box. The kernel is compiled without SMP or APIC
    and without a number of unused drivers (SCSI, ISA NICs, PCMCIA, umass, &c).
    IPFIREWALL, IPDIVERT, QUOTA and DEVICE_POLLING are compiled in. (Device
    polling is not currently enabled via the sysctl however).

    > - When the system performance suddenly degrades, what is the apparent load
    > and condition of the system? In particular, at that point if you
    > measure the load average and CPU utilization, perhaps with "systat
    > -vmstat" or "top", are the CPU(s) maxed out? How much time is in user
    > vs. system vs. interrupt (vs. idle).

    if_dc: nc > /dev/null
        Load 0.79 0.25 0.13
        CPU 41.5% sys, 28.5% interrupt, 5.5% user, 24.5% idle
        Interrupts 2501 clock, 128 rtc, 11684 dc0, 83 ata
        Disk ad0: 12.33 KB/t 4 tps 0.04 MB/s
        Disk ad1: 7.80 KB/t 80 tps 0.61 MB/s 8% busy

    if_dc: nc > /data/junk
        Load 0.11 0.26 0.17
        CPU 9.0% sys, 2.0% interrupt, 0.5% user, 88.5% idle
        Interrupts 2504 clock, 128 rtc, 434 dc0, 54 ata
        Disk ad0: -
        Disk ad1: 11.75 KB/t 51 tps 0.58 MB/s 100% busy

    if_fxp: nc > /data/junk
        Load 0.42 0.38 0.23
        CPU 61.0% sys, 31.2% interrupt, 2.5% user, 4.5% idle
        Interrupts 2501 clock, 128 rtc, 6036 fxp0, 145 ata
        Disk ad0: -
        Disk ad1: 128 KB/t 73 tps 9.07 MB/s 37% busy

    Plenty of free memory, little if any swapping at any time. Both disks are
    running in udma66. devinfo/dmesg doesn't indicate any conflict between disk
    controller and the network interfaces. There certainly appears to be some
    contention between the if_dc cards and the disk, however.

    Erik.

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  • Next message: Pawel Jakub Dawidek: "Re: RAID-3? (was: cvs commit: src MAINTAINERS)"

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