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    6100 10g port and vlans maxing at 1g speed

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    • D
      dnavas
      last edited by

      @spacebass I get 7G one way and 5G the other between two subnets (I have no idea why there's an asymmetry there, but the boxes are different), and I get well over 8 from gateway to subnet.
      I assume you've set MTU high on the 6100 LAN interface itself?

      I've noticed if you've bridged the 10G with the ethernet that the bridged network struggles mightily. I had that setup while I was bringing up the 6100 and didn't have all the switches connected yet. Don't leave the bridge on if you want decent throughput.

      There are no other interfaces between that might be a problem? I ask as in testing this I had reset my server's default vlan on the switch and when I went to set it back I lost connectivity. Reboot server, reboot switch, wound up having to create a dummy vlan untagged on that port and then remove the vlan before the port was happy again (the port next to it was happy as a clam). weird Also, when I first plugged in my gateway to the sfp28 switch it connected at 1G, which was ... not swell. Eventually that problem went away, but I didn't really do anything, it just resolved itself (was fiber 10G, now DAC). Double-check switch to gateway connection?

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      • S
        SteveITS Galactic Empire
        last edited by

        Netgate always says to not run the test on pfSense since that will use CPU and slow things down.

        They list the 6100 as
        "IPERF3 Traffic: 9.93 Gbps
        IMIX Traffic: 2.73 Gbps"

        Per the docs are you testing through WAN 3 and WAN 4, the 10 Gb ports? You mention "between subnets" but are those other ports? 940 is pretty much the max on a gigabit port. LAN 1-4 are 2.5 Gbps, so if using those, at what speed are they connecting to the switch? (visible on the dashboard)

        Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
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        • D
          dnavas @SteveITS
          last edited by

          Good point. In my case I was just hairpinning through a single 10Gb port across vlans, but OP should probably indicate what exists between A and B.

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            Mmm, 941Mbps is too close to 1G 'line rate' to be a coincidence IMO.

            Running iperf to/from the firewall itself will always be a worse result that testing through the firewall. But it can be a useful test as long as you realise the limitations.
            So here we can see the Servers interface must be linked at more than 1G but we can't actually see if the LAN is from the results shown.

            Steve

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            • S
              SpaceBass @stephenw10
              last edited by SpaceBass

              Here's some additional details:

              All of these subnets are vLANs off the ix0 10g interface.
              I know that means I'm running "on a stick" (so to speak) but shouldn't I at least get close to half of the port's speed?

              Here's a test from LAN (10.15.1.0/24) to vLAN 1012 (10.15.100.0/24). There are ANY/ANY rules for IPV4* on both interfaces.

              ╰─○ iperf3 -c 10.15.100.18
              
              [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
              [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   521 MBytes   437 Mbits/sec                  sender
              [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   518 MBytes   434 Mbits/sec                  receiver
              

              Here's a test from LAN to another host on LAN

              ╰─○ iperf3 -c 10.15.1.5
              [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
              [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  10.9 GBytes  9.36 Gbits/sec                  sender
              [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  10.9 GBytes  9.35 Gbits/sec                  receiver
              

              These remote hosts are on the same 10g switch (Unifi Aggregation Switch) as the pfSense appliance.

              I'm using default 1500 MTU.

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              • D
                dnavas
                last edited by

                It's fine, I've got the same setup. I also often use "-R" to run the traffic back, depending on the speed of the hosts involved.

                I would definitely up your MTU to 9k. The CPU is capable of a little over 600k packets per second per core, which at 1500b packets is about what you are seeing. It would be exciting if pfsense every got the tnsr routing speeds for handling LAN routing, but until then, MTU is your friend for managing peak bandwidth.

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Hmm, I expect to see more than that. What does the CPU usage look like when you're testing?

                  What does top -HaSP at the command line show?

                  Steve

                  S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • S
                    SpaceBass @stephenw10
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10 said in 6100 10g port and vlans maxing at 1g speed:

                    top -HaSP

                    Looks like at least two core get pegged. Ran a test on two hosts between 10.15.1.0/24 and 10.15.100.0/24

                    /root: top -HaSP
                    last pid: 53556;  load averages:  1.27,  0.75,  0.55    up 1+21:18:12  22:35:13
                    656 threads:   8 running, 631 sleeping, 17 waiting
                    CPU 0:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  100% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
                    CPU 1:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  100% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
                    CPU 2:  1.2% user,  0.0% nice, 51.0% system,  0.0% interrupt, 47.8% idle
                    CPU 3:  1.2% user,  0.0% nice,  2.7% system,  0.0% interrupt, 96.1% idle
                    Mem: 297M Active, 570M Inact, 715M Wired, 6225M Free
                    ARC: 357M Total, 88M MFU, 265M MRU, 32K Anon, 1149K Header, 3206K Other
                         132M Compressed, 291M Uncompressed, 2.20:1 Ratio
                    
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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Hmm, you see that load with only ~500Mbps passing?

                      Does it show what process is using that in the full top output? ntop-ng perhaps?

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • S
                        SpaceBass
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10 said in 6100 10g port and vlans maxing at 1g speed:

                        Hmm, you see that load with only ~500Mbps passing?

                        Does it show what process is using that in the full top output? ntop-ng perhaps?

                        It looks like it is if_io_tqg ... not sure what that is?
                        I ensured all SNMP is disabled, I uninstalled ntop-ng, still getting less than 1Gbit/sec

                        PID USERNAME    PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
                          0 root        -76    -     0B   736K CPU2     2 191:10  99.79% [kernel{if_io_tqg_2}]
                          0 root        -76    -     0B   736K CPU3     3 190:40  99.79% [kernel{if_io_tqg_3}]
                          0 root        -76    -     0B   736K -        0 223:36  95.08% [kernel{if_io_tqg_0}]
                          0 root        -76    -     0B   736K -        1 182:50  72.32% [kernel{if_io_tqg_1}]
                         11 root        155 ki31     0B    64K RUN      1  57.7H  19.83% [idle{idle: cpu1}]
                        
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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          Those are the NIC driver queues which is where the load for routing and filtering should appear.
                          But you should easily be able to pass 1Gbps there.

                          Do you see the same restriction between other interfaces?

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                          • S
                            SpaceBass @stephenw10
                            last edited by

                            @stephenw10 I'm only using one 10g interface. I'll try the 2nd one and report back.

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                            • D
                              dnavas
                              last edited by dnavas

                              Learning a lot watching this thread.
                              That said, I'm not expecting more than 620ish kpps. Would be happy to be proven wrong!
                              https://ipng.ch/s/articles/2021/11/26/netgate-6100.html

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                              • S
                                SpaceBass @dnavas
                                last edited by

                                @dnavas
                                interesting! A lot of that post is beyond my level of expertise. But is if fair to infer from your findings that you never got full 10gb speed when routing across networks?

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                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  The 6100 will not pass 10Gbps. There are many variables but I expect to see in the 3-4Gbps between the two 10G NICs.
                                  But you are seeing a restriction at a far lower level. Even given the single TCP stream and tha5t it's between VLANs on the same NIC I expect to see more.
                                  I'm setting up my own test now...

                                  S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • S
                                    SpaceBass @stephenw10
                                    last edited by SpaceBass

                                    @stephenw10 said in 6100 10g port and vlans maxing at 1g speed:

                                    The 6100 will not pass 10Gbps.

                                    Interesting
                                    Does that mean, in the context of this marketing language: IPERF3 Traffic: 18.50 Gbps, 18.50 Gpbs only refers to LAN <-> WAN? I mean, that'd be bottlenecked by the 10g ports, right? So is that some sort of WAN LAGG setup?

                                    What about this: IPERF3 Traffic: 9.93 Gbps does that just mean LAN <-> WAN with firewalls rules? Not routing across subnets?

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                                    • stephenw10S
                                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                      last edited by

                                      The 18.5Gbps figure is a total throughput (all interfaces) value for large packets (iperf, 1500B) of forwarding traffic. Without filtering.

                                      For a single TCP stream when hairpinned on the same interface using VLANs you hit the additional complication of loading the queues/cores. You will probably find you see different results if you repeat the test with a single iperf stream. The throughput is better when the send and receive queues fall to different CPU cores. Testing with multiple streams avoid that, I usually use -P 4 since it's a 4 core CPU.

                                      This is the loading I see when testing between VLANs on the ix0 port:

                                      last pid: 81510;  load averages:  1.36,  0.81,  0.56                                                                                      up 16+18:48:27  18:33:43
                                      670 threads:   10 running, 623 sleeping, 4 zombie, 33 waiting
                                      CPU 0:  0.4% user,  0.0% nice, 20.4% system, 15.7% interrupt, 63.5% idle
                                      CPU 1:  2.7% user,  0.0% nice,  1.2% system, 67.8% interrupt, 28.2% idle
                                      CPU 2:  7.5% user,  0.0% nice,  5.1% system, 58.4% interrupt, 29.0% idle
                                      CPU 3:  0.4% user,  0.0% nice, 10.2% system, 19.2% interrupt, 70.2% idle
                                      Mem: 1233M Active, 211M Inact, 1230M Laundry, 761M Wired, 4272M Free
                                      ARC: 357M Total, 242M MFU, 106M MRU, 296K Anon, 1610K Header, 6869K Other
                                           117M Compressed, 291M Uncompressed, 2.48:1 Ratio
                                      Swap: 1024M Total, 364M Used, 660M Free, 35% Inuse
                                      
                                        PID USERNAME    PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
                                         12 root        -72    -     0B   560K CPU3     3   3:41  81.58% [intr{swi1: netisr 0}]
                                         12 root        -72    -     0B   560K CPU0     0   2:47  72.43% [intr{swi1: netisr 3}]
                                         11 root        155 ki31     0B    64K RUN      3 385.9H  70.77% [idle{idle: cpu3}]
                                         11 root        155 ki31     0B    64K RUN      0 387.1H  66.14% [idle{idle: cpu0}]
                                         11 root        155 ki31     0B    64K RUN      1 385.7H  32.37% [idle{idle: cpu1}]
                                         11 root        155 ki31     0B    64K RUN      2 386.0H  30.00% [idle{idle: cpu2}]
                                          0 root        -76    -     0B   960K CPU0     0   1:40  17.55% [kernel{if_io_tqg_0}]
                                          0 root        -76    -     0B   960K -        3   1:06  11.07% [kernel{if_io_tqg_3}]
                                      

                                      That's between two 1G clients but with the port linked to a switch at 10G.
                                      It passes 1G as expected:

                                      [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
                                      [  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  1.60 GBytes   230 Mbits/sec                  receiver
                                      [  8]   0.00-60.00  sec  1.65 GBytes   237 Mbits/sec                  receiver
                                      [ 10]   0.00-60.00  sec  1.62 GBytes   232 Mbits/sec                  receiver
                                      [ 12]   0.00-60.00  sec  1.62 GBytes   232 Mbits/sec                  receiver
                                      [SUM]   0.00-60.00  sec  6.50 GBytes   930 Mbits/sec                  receiver
                                      

                                      ntop-ng is also running on that box but not on either interface in the test.

                                      Steve

                                      S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • S
                                        SpaceBass @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10
                                        I do see a difference with -P 4 vs -P 1

                                        4 streams I get about 1.5Gbits/sec and with 1 stream I get 650Mbits/sec.

                                        Does that lead us to conclude that, when using a single 10g interface for VLANs, I will never get more than about 1.5 Gbits/sec because of processor constraints?

                                        Would I see better performance if I put some of the vLANS on ix1 (the other 10g interface)?

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                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          Yes, I would expect to see better performance routing between different NICs. Especially for single TCP connections.

                                          One interesting thing though is that your top output does not appear to show the interrupt load like mine does. It could just be missing from your screenshot but that would also imply is using less CPU time than the NIC queues unlike in my test. I wonder if you have something else running that appears as load there. Traffic shaping maybe?

                                          Steve

                                          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • S
                                            SpaceBass @stephenw10
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10 here's the full output:

                                            from 10.15.1.111/24

                                            command:

                                            iperf3 -c 10.15.100.18 -P 4
                                            
                                            last pid: 30212;  load averages:  1.42,  0.65,  0.48                                                     up 3+21:37:16  22:54:17
                                            649 threads:   8 running, 624 sleeping, 17 waiting
                                            CPU 0:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  100% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
                                            CPU 1:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  100% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
                                            CPU 2:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice, 57.3% system,  0.0% interrupt, 42.7% idle
                                            CPU 3:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  100% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
                                            Mem: 209M Active, 515M Inact, 751M Wired, 6332M Free
                                            ARC: 368M Total, 90M MFU, 272M MRU, 32K Anon, 1218K Header, 4383K Other
                                                 136M Compressed, 305M Uncompressed, 2.24:1 Ratio
                                            
                                              PID USERNAME    PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
                                                0 root        -76    -     0B   736K CPU1     1 251:45  99.85% [kernel{if_io_tqg_1}]
                                                0 root        -76    -     0B   736K CPU3     3 282:09  99.85% [kernel{if_io_tqg_3}]
                                                0 root        -76    -     0B   736K CPU0     0 316:09  99.75% [kernel{if_io_tqg_0}]
                                                0 root        -76    -     0B   736K -        2 259:37  58.90% [kernel{if_io_tqg_2}]
                                               11 root        155 ki31     0B    64K RUN      2  83.9H  39.69% [idle{idle: cpu2}]
                                                0 root        -92    -     0B   736K -        0  12:48   0.39% [kernel{dummynet}]
                                            16464 root         20    0    15M  5916K CPU2     2   0:00   0.16% top -HaSP
                                             3134 root         20    0    19M  8156K select   2   0:08   0.12% /usr/local/sbin/openvpn --config /var/etc/openvpn/server21/co
                                              387 root         20    0    12M  3120K bpf      2  11:26   0.10% /usr/local/sbin/filterlog -i pflog0 -p /var/run/filterlog.pid
                                             4703 avahi        20    0    13M  4152K select   2   6:30   0.09% avahi-daemon: running [washington.local] (avahi-daemon)
                                             1183 root         20    0    16M  7516K select   2   4:54   0.08% /usr/local/sbin/openvpn --config /var/etc/openvpn/client15/co
                                            97937 root         20    0    11M  2816K select   2  18:30   0.08% /usr/sbin/syslogd -s -c -c -l /var/dhcpd/var/run/log -P /var/
                                                0 root        -76    -     0B   736K -        2   3:28   0.06% [kernel{if_config_tqg_0}]
                                               24 root        -16    -     0B    16K -        2   3:12   0.04% [rand_harvestq]
                                            72462 root         20    0    17M  7564K select   2   1:40   0.04% /usr/local/sbin/openvpn --config /var/etc/openvpn/client14/co
                                               12 root        -60    -     0B   272K WAIT     2   2:02   0.04% [intr{swi4: clock (0)}]
                                            
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