Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

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

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Official Netgate® Hardware
    18 Posts 5 Posters 2.1k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • 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

      D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • 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

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • 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.

          B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • B
            bcdouglas @stephenw10
            last edited by

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

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • 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

              M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 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

                D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 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.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 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

                    M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • 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

                      D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • 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.

                        M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • 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

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • 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

                            M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • 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.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • First post
                                  Last post
                                Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.