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    6100 openvpn (client-gateway) speed? QAT inactive?

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    • keyserK
      keyser Rebel Alliance @daemonix
      last edited by keyser

      @daemonix you should unselect “disable hardware checksum offloading”
      The 6100 can make good use of that hardware assist. The other two should remain disabled - not because the hardware doesn’t support it, But because a firewall needs to inspect Those things in software - not have them obsfuscated in hardware. They should only be unselected if you disable pffilter and use pfsense as a router only.

      The remaining settings are fine. Depending on usecase you might want to unselect the “hn altq support” if you ever should migrate the config to a new box with hn NICs

      Love the no fuss of using the official appliances :-)

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Hmm, that's interesting. Enabling QAT doesn't really make much difference for OpenVPN. Usually.

        Do you have hardware crypto selected in the OpenVPN config?

        What VPN speeds were you seeing on the previous hardware?

        The hn NIC setting makes no difference on the 6100 as it doesn't have hn NICs. It only applies to Hyper-V installs.

        Steve

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        • D
          daemonix @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 previous hardware was a "I7-3615QM" (mac mini 2012) running Proxmox, and I could do 300+Mbit/s over openvpn. (My line is 350Mbit limited via pfsense) If I remember correctly I was getting max possible or very close to it.

          In the openvpn client config I have NO hardware acceleration selected.

          What do you think?

          Thanks

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            Ah, yes, for a single threaded process like OpenVPN that i7 is going to be faster.

            I expect better than 200Mbps though with AES-GCM given low enough latency.

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            • B
              bcdouglas @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10 Is this a bug? If so, is it something Netgate will look into fixing?

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by stephenw10

                Not really, it's more like a missing feature. 😉

                With the inclusion of DCO in OpenVPN leveraging QAT becomes a lot easier but still a lot of development work. (is actually already enabled).

                Steve

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                • M
                  michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10 So is the verdict at this time that QAT with OpenVPN running DCO enabled there wouldnt be any noticeable improvement in throughput because qat isnt supported within openvpn?

                  Also is it fair to say QAT is only for IPsec at this time?

                  Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                  Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                  Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                  Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                  JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

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                  • D
                    daemonix @michmoor
                    last edited by

                    @michmoor it seems so. I saw better speeds but I cant be sure (stephen said its not supposed to be better :S ). I moved to a x86 on that location and Ill use the netgate systems I got for some smaller locations.

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      No, in fact my statement above is incorrect. OpenVPN with DCO enabled, because it's all in kernel, can use the crypto framework that recognises the QAT driver already. It's significantly faster in fact.
                      One other thing to note there is that unlike userland OpenSSL DCO requires the AES-NI driver loaded to use it, much like IPSec. So if you enable DCO and don't have either QAT or AES-NI drivers loaded it will probably actually be slower. But with either those it's faster. Sometimes by a lot!

                      Steve

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                      • M
                        michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10 So im confused then on how to enable both AES NI and QAT. Or maybe they cant be enabled at the same time??
                        So on my 4100 i enabled QAT but i see NI is not active

                        f88d1b0a-b74c-4d72-9766-fdda6d9b56f8-image.png

                        Should i switch back to AES NI then?

                        Then when i go under OpenVPN i see the option below which is set but no clue as to what it is as its not an avialble option to enable under System - Advanced- Miscellaneous

                        4aab567a-9ce2-49ab-96a9-0b2700abf11d-image.png

                        Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                        Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                        Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                        Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                        JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

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                        • D
                          daemonix @michmoor
                          last edited by

                          @michmoor your first photo tells me you a set!
                          Dont use the INTEL RNM on the second screenshot. leave it empty.

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                          • M
                            michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @daemonix
                            last edited by

                            @daemonix Got it.
                            Thanks !!

                            Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                            Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                            Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                            Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                            JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              Technically you can load both QAT and AES-NI drivers but I'm not how the crypto framework would decide when to use for which ciphers. However pfSense only exposes one at a time because the QAT driver is faster in every scenario. Choose QAT if your hardware supports it.

                              Steve

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                              • M
                                michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                                last edited by

                                @stephenw10 said in 6100 openvpn (client-gateway) speed? QAT inactive?:

                                drivers but I'm not how the crypto framework would decide when to use for which ciphers. However pfSense only exposes one at a time because the QAT driver is faster in every scenario. Choose QAT if your h

                                So all VPNs with the exception of Wireguard should take advantage of QAT?

                                Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                                Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                                JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  Well IPSec and OpenVPN with DCO will.

                                  So not (yet) Wireguard, PPTP, L2TP, TINC.

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