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    Is Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) required/wanted for WireGuard

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved WireGuard
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    • S
      spielp @dirtyfreebooter
      last edited by

      @dirtyfreebooter out of curiosity what kind of heat sink/fan are you using for your cpu?

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      • D
        dirtyfreebooter @spielp
        last edited by

        @spielp said in Is Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) required/wanted for WireGuard:

        @dirtyfreebooter out of curiosity what kind of heat sink/fan are you using for your cpu?

        I started with the Dynatron Copper Heatsink K199, thinking would be nice to have an active cooler. Idled at 30C, which i thought was actually pretty bad for G5400 CPU. I re-applied the thermal grease, still 30C. I swapped it out for the supermicro one, SNK-P0049P and idle temps went down to 21C. I guess the airflow in the tight 1U case was just better with an passive heatsink.

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        • E
          ensnare @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 said in Is Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) required/wanted for WireGuard:

          No QAT would not help WireGuard anyway as the cipher it uses, chacha20/poly, is not accelerated by any current implementation.

          http://patches.dpdk.org/cover/64728/

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          • D
            dirtyfreebooter @ensnare
            last edited by

            @ensnare said in Is Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) required/wanted for WireGuard:

            http://patches.dpdk.org/cover/64728/

            😀 💪 any ideas on how much of a speedup QAT offers with chacha-poly?

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              @ensnare said in Is Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) required/wanted for WireGuard:

              http://patches.dpdk.org/cover/64728/

              Mmm, well that could be interesting. Being in DPDK is quite a way from being in FreeBSD though.

              Steve

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              • A
                aivxtla
                last edited by aivxtla

                I can give my own personal experience with the Xeon D1541/D2141 and EPYC 3251. The Xeon D2141/2121 series based appliances have a pretty high idle power draw at around 40-50 Watts. The AMD EPYC 3251 SuperMicro appliances/boards boards performance wise are close to the Xeon-D2141 (outside of AVX512 which is missing on the EPYC) with much lower real world idle and max power draw and cheaper and also run cooler. The D-1541 SuperMicro appliance (essentially the OEM version of Netgate's XG1541) usually idled a little higher (~32 Watts Idle and Max around 85-90 Watts) than the 3251 (31 Watts Idle and Max around 80-85 Watts) while performing much worse in general. I can run the 3251 in my home office with little noise at low to medium loads (2x 35dBm rated 40mm 8500 RPM Fans @1,600-2,000 RPM) unlike the D-1541/D-2141 which require much higher fan speeds even at idle (3,500-4,000 RPM). SuperMicro seems to have used better heatsinks with heat pipes on the EPYC. Also do note that the Wattage advertised is generally for stock clocks and doesn't take into account boost clocks so it can be misleading. Would be nice to see a Netgate branded appliance with an EPYC 3201/3251.

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                • H
                  helloworld21 Banned
                  last edited by helloworld21

                  This post is deleted!
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                  • SebMS
                    SebM
                    last edited by SebM

                    It's 2023 now, was wondering if the QAT driver in pfSense 23.01 can accelerate WireGuard...

                    Thanks for any pointer!

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Replied in the other thread.

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                      • SebMS
                        SebM
                        last edited by

                        Just here to report that enabling IPsec-MB on 23.05 has reduced the CPU usage quite a bit on my 5100 when using Wireguard.

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