Re: [suse-sles-e] Does tg3 support NAPI? (tuning for packet capture)

From: Alexei_Roudnev (Alexei_Roudnev_at_exigengroup.com)
Date: Wed Jul 19 2006 - 20:04:08 CEST 

Message-ID: <00b001c6ab5d$baf0cf90$6f31a8c0@sjc.exigengroup.com>
From: "Alexei_Roudnev" <Alexei_Roudnev@exigengroup.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:04:08 -0700
Subject: Re: [suse-sles-e] Does tg3 support NAPI? (tuning for packet capture)

I should not bother too much, if server is dedicated and is relatively new.
New Xeon based (for example) servers with
simple Intel 1Gbit ethernte interface (embedded NICs on DELL 2850) can
handle 100% of the 1Gbit traffic using normal TCP/IP stack, except if
average package size is very small.

There are 2 limitations in reality:
- # of packets/second which can be processed by the server - looks as it is
about 10 ,000 - 20,000 packets/server, even more if server is dedicated
- total data bandwidth limited by PCI bus - looks as it is about 150
MB/second for embedded NIC's (total on the server), or something like this.

So, if you
- are not VoIP provider
- don't use more that 2 - 4 1Gbit NIC's on the server
- have all server dedicated to your task
should not expect problems.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven L. Kohrs" <skohrs@opensourceexperts.com>
To: <suse-sles-e@suse.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 10:16 AM
Subject: [suse-sles-e] Does tg3 support NAPI? (tuning for packet capture)

> I am trying to tune a SLES 9 server for use as a snort-inline intrusion
> prevention system (IPS). I've read that NAPI support greatly increases
> packet throughput. Currently, the server has Broadcom NICs that are
> using the tg3 driver. The following shows NAPI support has been
> compiled into the kernel, but I don't see anything that mentions tg3 (or
> bcm5700):
>
> zcat /proc/config.gz | grep -i napi
>
> CONFIG_TULIP_NAPI=y
> CONFIG_TULIP_NAPI_HW_MITIGATION=y
> CONFIG_ADAPTEC_STARFIRE_NAPI=y
> CONFIG_E100_NAPI=y
> CONFIG_E1000_NAPI=y
> CONFIG_IXGB_NAPI=y
> CONFIG_S2IO_NAPI=y
>
> Google is starting to suck with all the irrelevant information it
> returns, even with narrowing the search down to specific sites and
> languages.
>
> Has anyone tried to tune SLES 9 for maximum packet throughput/capture
> performance? Am I one the right track or way off?
>
>
> The good news is, we've ordered an Adlink PCI-8246 NIC (for its bypass
> capability) which is based on an Intel chipset. This should use the
> e1000 driver and give us better tuning parameters.
>
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