Enabling squid proxy slows down speedtest.net speed test

Island

Just setup my pfsense box today, so be kind :)

With my computer connected directly to ISP router (actiontec) I get:

With my computer connected to the pfsense box (Dell Poweredge 2650 with dual 1.8 Ghz Xeons, 400 FSB, 512k L2, 1 GB system RAM, 2x18 GB 7200 RPM U160 hard drives in RAID 1 connected on onboard raid controller with 128 MB raid controller memory) I get the same as above.

However, if I enable the squid package addon, the speedtest.net test is reporting only:

I set the squid package to use 512 MB memory cache size under cache management.

Any ideas on how I could improve this as I would like to run squid to reduce unneeded bandwidth use and provide a little extra performance boost, but it seems I'm creating the opposite effect :(

Cry Havok

If you have a look you'll find a couple of long threads on this subject. People's experiences vary, some reporting major slowdowns, others (like me) having no such problem. It will at least give you a place to start from.

heiko

for example:

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,7911.0.html

mhab12

Try 1.2 RC3 and let us know your results.

http://pfsense.loquefaltaba.com/downloads/old/

hoba

I wonder if this is kernel raleted. We had some odd reports that the uniprocessorkernel sometimes causes various issues/glitches on uniprocessor machines. If you have the option to test please retest with the smp-kernel even if you have a uniprocessor machine and report back.

mhab12

I have tried on both uniprocessor and dual processor machines and tried both the SMP and uniprocessor kernel on my dual proc machine. Same results. If I roll back to 1.2 rc3 all is well.

Island

@hoba:

I wonder if this is kernel raleted. We had some odd reports that the uniprocessorkernel sometimes causes various issues/glitches on uniprocessor machines. If you have the option to test please retest with the smp-kernel even if you have a uniprocessor machine and report back.

Thanks, but I'm running on a dual 1.8 Ghz Xeon and am running the smp-kernel already.

FreeBSD islandred 6.2-RELEASE-p11 FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE-p11 #0: Sun Feb 24 16:49:14 EST 2008 sullrich{at)builder6.pfsense

chudy

To Fix Squid

add this to the /boot/loader.conf

kern.ipc.nmbclusters=32768
kern.maxfiles=65536
kern.maxfilesperproc=32768
net.inet.ip.portrange.last=65535

or just delete it and replace with

autoboot_delay="1"
#kern.ipc.nmbclusters="0"
hint.apic.0.disabled=1
kern.hz=100
#for squid
kern.ipc.nmbclusters="32768"
kern.maxfiles="65536"
kern.maxfilesperproc="32768"
net.inet.ip.portrange.last="65535"

you might ask why squid is so slow? its because default configuration of pfsense is router not as a server
thats why kern.ipc.nmbclusters="0" <- is set to zero. if you just simply remove this squid will be just fine.

but to tune the squid i add this
kern.ipc.nmbclusters: 32768
kern.maxfiles=65536
kern.maxfilesperproc=32768
net.inet.ip.portrange.last: 65535

i just figure out why squid is slow. but i don't like the binary package of squid. i'll be using the squid HEAD bec of the store_rewrite feature for caching youtubes videos and other video files and mp3.