CPU to Saturate 150mbit up and down simultaneously via VPN?

pfBasic

Thanks for your input Mike, it's always good stuff! I happen to have a j3355b I use with LibreELEC I also have a spare HDD and PRO/1000. I think I'll run pfsense on it tonight and see how it handles VPN. I'll report back!

pfBasic

@mattlach:

I like the PicoPSU's as they seem to have much less overhead at idle when measured at the wall with my Kill-A-Watt than a similar PC with a traditional ATX power supply does. Not quite sure why that is though.

It's likely due to a combination of the picoPSU's not having a fan which takes power to run, and the fact that PSU's tend to be inefficient when only drawing a small percentage of their peak power. So even a 300W ATX PSU is running at 10% of peak with a 30W pfSense box, while a 60W AC/DC converter (this is what really matters for efficiency with a picoPSU) is running at 50%.

On my LibreElec J3355B I saw a drop of about 8W switching from an old ATX PSU to a pico PSU. Not enough to warrant buying one if you already have an ATX PSU lying around, but maybe enough if you don't. I did it because i didn't want to hear the fan though.

pfBasic

I posted another thread on the J3355B performance.
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=127793.msg705046#msg705046

It was pretty impressive IMO.

On the tests I ran it looked like the CPU scaled fairly linearly with VPN throughput. If that's true then this CPU would work for your 300Mbps application @ AES-128-CBC.

$55 for low power SoC.

pfBasic

@authenticx:

Can you elaborate on how to setup an OpenVPN gateway group please?

Sure, you simply setup 2+ openVPN clients. I would recommend setting different servers for these clients if able, this helps mitigate the effects of a server going down or slowing down.

Go to Interfaces, assign them an interface and enable the interface, save and apply

Go to System/Routing/Gateway Groups
Create a new gateway group. Select all of the clients that you want to work simultaneously as Tier 1, you can optionally select fallback clients as Tier 2+. Fallbacks are active when all gateways in the higher tier are down.

Finally go to your Firewall rules
Any rule that passes traffic that you want to force VPN use on, edit it, select advanced settings and under Gateway select the gateway group you created.

whosmatt

@mattlach:

AMD Geode based APU2C4

Just to clarify, the APU2C4 isn't AMD Geode based, it's on much more powerful Jaguar cores. And that said, with four of them I'd expect it to be possible to aggregate multiple OpenVPN connections to equal 150Mbps, as others have suggested. I say possible because it might be, not because I'd advise it. But if I were in OP's situation I'd at least try it.

Just didn't want anyone to get the idea the that APU2C4 is the same as the old APU systems, which were (are) based on very old Geode CPUs.

VAMike

@whosmatt:

@mattlach:

AMD Geode based APU2C4

Just to clarify, the APU2C4 isn't AMD Geode based, it's on much more powerful Jaguar cores. And that said, with four of them I'd expect it to be possible to aggregate multiple OpenVPN connections to equal 150Mbps, as others have suggested. I say possible because it might be, not because I'd advise it. But if I were in OP's situation I'd at least try it.

Note that the requirement was 150Mbps bidirectional; most of the test numbers are single stream–roughly 300Mbps equivalent. Dicey on an APU2, I think, even with multiple streams.

Just didn't want anyone to get the idea the that APU2C4 is the same as the old APU systems, which were (are) based on very old Geode CPUs.

Just to correct the correction, the geodes were in the older ALIX series; pcengines "APU" was a bobcat core and performance-wise was much closer to the APU2 except that it lacks AES-NI and has half the cores. (Confusing naming as "APU" is AMDs name for a line covering 8 different cores over 5+ years.)

whosmatt

@VAMike:

Just to correct the correction, the geodes were in the older ALIX series; pcengines "APU" was a bobcat core and performance-wise was much closer to the APU2 except that it lacks AES-NI and has half the cores. (Confusing naming as "APU" is AMDs name for a line covering 8 different cores over 5+ years.)

Ah, yes. I meant ALIX.

mattlach

@VAMike:

Get something around an i3-7100. It's more than you need for 300Mbps OpenVPN, but that gives you room to grow. It's fairly power efficient if you're not running it at max. (And if you do end up maxing it out, then a low-powered chip wasn't going to work anyway.) Or if you want to wait, embedded solutions based on goldmont might work but they're still thin on the ground and we don't have a lot of real-world results. Silvermont/Airmont based embedded processors aren't going to hit 300Mbps of OpenVPN.

So, I took your advice and went with an i3-7100.

This is my first socket 1151 chip, so there are a lot of unfamiliar BIOS options.

Anyone know if "Intel Speed Shift Technology" is compatible with the version of BSD pfSense is built on?

edit:

I also have to admit I am VERY impressed with this little chip.

I haven't installed pfSense yet, but I am doing some testing in Ubuntu 16.10.

Using the PicoPSU-80 and 60W power brick kit from Mini-Box.com I'm idling on the desktop pulling only 7.1W from the wall (as measured on my Kill-A-Watt).

That's about the same power as my PcEngines low power Quad Core Jaguar at idle.

When I load up the chip with mprime (linux version of Prime95) it peaks at about 46W at the wall.

And that's at 3.9Ghz 2C/4T.

Even the stock Intel cooler (which just BARELY fit inside the M350 case once the drive brackets were removed) doesn't spin up much during load testing.

Very impressed.

The ASRock H270M-ITX/ac is also a great little Mini-ITX board with dual Intel NIC's to pair with it.

mattlach

@VAMike:

@whosmatt:

@mattlach:

AMD Geode based APU2C4

Just to clarify, the APU2C4 isn't AMD Geode based, it's on much more powerful Jaguar cores. And that said, with four of them I'd expect it to be possible to aggregate multiple OpenVPN connections to equal 150Mbps, as others have suggested. I say possible because it might be, not because I'd advise it. But if I were in OP's situation I'd at least try it.

Note that the requirement was 150Mbps bidirectional; most of the test numbers are single stream–roughly 300Mbps equivalent. Dicey on an APU2, I think, even with multiple streams.

Just didn't want anyone to get the idea the that APU2C4 is the same as the old APU systems, which were (are) based on very old Geode CPUs.

Just to correct the correction, the geodes were in the older ALIX series; pcengines "APU" was a bobcat core and performance-wise was much closer to the APU2 except that it lacks AES-NI and has half the cores. (Confusing naming as "APU" is AMDs name for a line covering 8 different cores over 5+ years.)

Yeah, my bad, I got my chips confused. Definitely have the PCEngines APU2C4, which is 4 Jaguar cores at 1Ghz I believe (or was it 1.2?)

Jailer

@mattlach:

Yeah, my bad, I got my chips confused. Definitely have the PCEngines APU2C4, which is 4 Jaguar cores at 1Ghz I believe (or was it 1.2?)

2nd gen Jaguar core at 1 Ghz according the the document below and pcengines. Likely limited to 1Ghz due to the design of their cooling solution.

https://www.amd.com/Documents/AMDGSeriesSOCProductBrief.pdf

CPU: AMD Embedded G series GX-412TC, 1 GHz quad Jaguar core with 64 bit and AES-NI support, 32K data + 32K instruction cache per core, shared 2MB L2 cache.

whosmatt

@mattlach:

I also have to admit I am VERY impressed with this little chip.

I haven't installed pfSense yet, but I am doing some testing in Ubuntu 16.10.

Using the PicoPSU-80 and 60W power brick kit from Mini-Box.com I'm idling on the desktop pulling only 7.1W from the wall (as measured on my Kill-A-Watt).

That's about the same power as my PcEngines low power Quad Core Jaguar at idle.

When I load up the chip with mprime (linux version of Prime95) it peaks at about 46W at the wall.

And that's at 3.9Ghz 2C/4T.

Even the stock Intel cooler (which just BARELY fit inside the M350 case once the drive brackets were removed) doesn't spin up much during load testing.

Very impressed.

The ASRock H270M-ITX/ac is also a great little Mini-ITX board with dual Intel NIC's to pair with it.

Wow. That's really good to know. Yeah, those M350 cases are tiny, but they kind of stand alone in the market, and are perfect for a mini ITX pfSense system provided your NICs are onboard. I have one but it's for a MythTV frontend. Thanks for the info.

mattlach

@whosmatt:

@mattlach:

I also have to admit I am VERY impressed with this little chip.

I haven't installed pfSense yet, but I am doing some testing in Ubuntu 16.10.

Using the PicoPSU-80 and 60W power brick kit from Mini-Box.com I'm idling on the desktop pulling only 7.1W from the wall (as measured on my Kill-A-Watt).

That's about the same power as my PcEngines low power Quad Core Jaguar at idle.

When I load up the chip with mprime (linux version of Prime95) it peaks at about 46W at the wall.

And that's at 3.9Ghz 2C/4T.

Even the stock Intel cooler (which just BARELY fit inside the M350 case once the drive brackets were removed) doesn't spin up much during load testing.

Very impressed.

The ASRock H270M-ITX/ac is also a great little Mini-ITX board with dual Intel NIC's to pair with it.

Wow. That's really good to know. Yeah, those M350 cases are tiny, but they kind of stand alone in the market, and are perfect for a mini ITX pfSense system provided your NICs are onboard. I have one but it's for a MythTV frontend. Thanks for the info.

Any time!

And it gets better. I killed Xorg and the idle wattage measured at the wall went down to 6.2W!

Full specs if anyone else is interested (links to where I bought them, you may find better prices elsewhere):

Intel Core i3-7100 ($119.96 w. Prime)
ASRock H270M-ITX/ac Mini-ITX motherboard with dual Intel NIC's ($96.98)
Crucial 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4-2133 kit ($55.49 w. Prime)
BiWin 60GB M.2 Sata SSD ($40.98)
PicoPSU-80 + 60W Adapter Power Kit ($35)
M350 Universal Mini-ITX enclosure ($39.95)
Molex to P4 power adapter ($4.95)

And that's it. Total: 393.31 (less for me, since I already had a few of the parts left over from other projects.

The CPU comes with a cooler. Before you assemble everything, it looks like it won't fit in the M350 enclosure, but it does (just barely), as long as you don't use the 2.5" drive brackets. (use an M2, USB drive or SATA DOM)

I also pulled out the mini-Wlan card (you loosen two screws on the bottom of the board and it comes right out). I wasn't using it, and I figured I'd rather not have it wasting power. Also disabled everything in BIOS I wasnt planning on using, and enabled all power saving states, except suspend to RAM, as the router needs to be operating 24/7.

I used a fan profile on the board. The CPU puts out so little power that it seems to stay at the coolers minimum fan speed most of the time. Granted it is pretty cold in my basement right now.

(Warmer temps will result in higher fan speeds which will drive up power consumption noticeably. At this low power use the fans use a surprisingly large percentage of the power)

I'm very happy thus far.

Just stay away from the USB3 ports. pfSense doesn't seem to like those at all, and the installers will fail unless booted from one of the USB2 ports.

mattlach

So,

After installing pfSense, my power use at idle went up a little bit to about 8W (compared to 6.2W in Ubuntu).

Part of this may be due to my "Hidaptive" power setting, or maybe BSD 10.3 isnt quite as good at power management as Ubuntu is at this point.

Either way, still good results.

Here are some comparative openSSL numbers,

First the PcEngines APU2C4:


[2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: openssl speed -elapsed -evp aes-128-ecb
You have chosen to measure elapsed time instead of user CPU time.
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 16 size blocks: 23413097 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 64 size blocks: 18438085 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 256 size blocks: 7473361 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 1024 size blocks: 2115520 aes-128-ecb's in 3.01s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 8192 size blocks: 279464 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
OpenSSL 1.0.1s-freebsd  1 Mar 2016
built on: date not available
options:bn(64,64) rc4(8x,int) des(idx,cisc,16,int) aes(partial) idea(int) blowfish(idx) 
compiler: clang
The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-128-ecb     124869.85k   393345.81k   637726.81k   720221.92k   763123.03k

Now the i3-7100:

[2.3.3-RELEASE][admin@router.localdomain]/var/log: openssl speed -elapsed -evp aes-128-ecb
You have chosen to measure elapsed time instead of user CPU time.
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 16 size blocks: 242729953 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 64 size blocks: 207367303 aes-128-ecb's in 3.01s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 256 size blocks: 69510589 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 1024 size blocks: 17831161 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
Doing aes-128-ecb for 3s on 8192 size blocks: 2219499 aes-128-ecb's in 3.00s
OpenSSL 1.0.1s-freebsd  1 Mar 2016
built on: date not available
options:bn(64,64) rc4(16x,int) des(idx,cisc,16,int) aes(partial) idea(int) blowfish(idx) 
compiler: clang
The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-128-ecb    1294559.75k  4412345.31k  5931570.26k  6086369.62k  6060711.94k

Looks like an average of about an order of magnitude improvement across the board.

Now if I could only get OpenVPN to work, I'd be happy.

mattlach

To follow up on this, I did some testing using this benchmark method suggested by Ira (note the time you want is the one with the U, I think)

My old APU2C4 - according to this test - is able to handle ~45Mbps in OpenVPN.

The i3-7100 using the same method appears to be able to handle ~425Mpbs

Since OpenVPN uses one thread per connection, the way I interpret this is that it can support up to 425Mbps per core.

Since - by necessity - up and down are on separate threads, and I have to cores, I could max it out at 425/425 at the same time.

mattlach

@pfBasic:

This is also encrypting at AES-256-CBC, which I also don't recommend. AES-128-GCM is more than enough for your privacy and significantly more efficient.

I have some questions regarding your statements about different ciphers.

1.) Are GCM ciphers even compatible with pfSense?

[2.3.3-RELEASE][admin@router.localdomain]/root: openvpn --show-ciphers
The following ciphers and cipher modes are available
for use with OpenVPN.  Each cipher shown below may be
used as a parameter to the --cipher option.  The default
key size is shown as well as whether or not it can be
changed with the --keysize directive.  Using a CBC mode
is recommended. In static key mode only CBC mode is allowed.

AES-128-CBC  (128 bit key, 128 bit block)
AES-128-CFB  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-128-CFB1  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-128-CFB8  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-128-OFB  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-192-CBC  (192 bit key, 128 bit block)
AES-192-CFB  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-192-CFB1  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-192-CFB8  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-192-OFB  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-256-CBC  (256 bit key, 128 bit block)
AES-256-CFB  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-256-CFB1  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-256-CFB8  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
AES-256-OFB  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-128-CBC  (128 bit key, 128 bit block)
CAMELLIA-128-CFB  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-128-CFB1  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-128-CFB8  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-128-OFB  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-192-CBC  (192 bit key, 128 bit block)
CAMELLIA-192-CFB  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-192-CFB1  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-192-CFB8  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-192-OFB  (192 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-256-CBC  (256 bit key, 128 bit block)
CAMELLIA-256-CFB  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-256-CFB1  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-256-CFB8  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAMELLIA-256-OFB  (256 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
SEED-CBC  (128 bit key, 128 bit block)
SEED-CFB  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
SEED-OFB  (128 bit key, 128 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)

The following ciphers have a block size of less than 128 bits, 
and are therefore deprecated.  Do not use unless you have to.

BF-CBC  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block)
BF-CFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
BF-OFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAST5-CBC  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block)
CAST5-CFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
CAST5-OFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-CBC  (64 bit key, 64 bit block)
DES-CFB  (64 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-CFB1  (64 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-CFB8  (64 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-EDE-CBC  (128 bit key, 64 bit block)
DES-EDE-CFB  (128 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-EDE-OFB  (128 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-EDE3-CBC  (192 bit key, 64 bit block)
DES-EDE3-CFB  (192 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-EDE3-CFB1  (192 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-EDE3-CFB8  (192 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-EDE3-OFB  (192 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DES-OFB  (64 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
DESX-CBC  (192 bit key, 64 bit block)
IDEA-CBC  (128 bit key, 64 bit block)
IDEA-CFB  (128 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
IDEA-OFB  (128 bit key, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
RC2-40-CBC  (40 bit key by default, 64 bit block)
RC2-64-CBC  (64 bit key by default, 64 bit block)
RC2-CBC  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block)
RC2-CFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
RC2-OFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
RC5-CBC  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block)
RC5-CFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)
RC5-OFB  (128 bit key by default, 64 bit block, TLS client/server mode only)

I don't see any GCM modes in that list.

2.) I did some performance testing using the method suggested by Ira, and I found an almost negligible difference in performance between AES-256-CBC and AES-128-CBC. If that is the case, why not just use 256 bit as it is stronger?

Would appreciate your input.

pfBasic

AES-GCM is supported in 2.4, if you're interested you can use 2.4.0 BETA which I have had zero stability issues with for home use.

I couldn't tell you what is happening behind the scenes with AES-NI & OpenVPN between 128 bit and 256 bit encrypt/decrypt. And yes, there is often not a massive performance gain by switching from AES 256 to 128 CBC, but it is normally big enough to matter. https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=127793.msg705162#msg705162

CBC to GCM should be a significant jump.

While I like the benchmark that Ira put together, take it with a grain of salt for real world performance. I doubt that it works well across different architectures, different versions of AES-NI, different versions of AES. I can tell you that it is not correct for my i5-2400.

I can tell you that when I did real world testing (not by any means rigorous) on a J3355B switching from AES-256-CBC to AES-128-CBC (my VPN provider does not support GCM) and the difference was dramatic. https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=127793.msg705046#msg705046
That doesn't mean the same applies to your CPU though, but only real world tests can tell you that.

And saying that 256 bit encryption is better/more secure than 128 bit encryption is arguable.
As far as anyone knows AES-128 has no known vulnerabilities and is effectively uncrackable. The same is true of AES-256.
Most likely no one will ever attempt to decrypt your data at any encryption level. If they do, no one can brute force AES-128 so there's no known value of using stronger encryption.
If a (not third world) state level entity wants to hack you, they will and they won't care what encryption you are using. So don't bother trying.

A very rough analogue would be that if you want to protect your crystal ball collection during a bombing raid, keeping them in a 50' thick concrete bunker is more secure than keeping them in a 25' thick concrete bunker. Even the best crystal ball thieves only have hand grenades so they will effectively never penetrate the 25' bunker and those guys aren't even interested in your crystal balls.
But then the US Gov't has the GBU-57A/B, so if they ever feel like getting into your crystal ball collection they most certainly can :).

mattlach

@pfBasic:

AES-GCM is supported in 2.4, if you're interested you can use 2.4.0 BETA which I have had zero stability issues with for home use.

I couldn't tell you what is happening behind the scenes with AES-NI & OpenVPN between 128 bit and 256 bit encrypt/decrypt. And yes, there is often not a massive performance gain by switching from AES 256 to 128 CBC, but it is normally big enough to matter. https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=127793.msg705162#msg705162

CBC to GCM should be a significant jump.

While I like the benchmark that Ira put together, take it with a grain of salt for real world performance. I doubt that it works well across different architectures, different versions of AES-NI, different versions of AES. I can tell you that it is not correct for my i5-2400.

I can tell you that when I did real world testing (not by any means rigorous) on a J3355B switching from AES-256-CBC to AES-128-CBC (my VPN provider does not support GCM) and the difference was dramatic. https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=127793.msg705046#msg705046
That doesn't mean the same applies to your CPU though, but only real world tests can tell you that.

Thanks. I appreciate the input on that.

Do you know what about GCM it is that makes it so much faster? Is it a weaker cipher, or just more efficient somehow?

pfBasic

No, not really. The buzz words I've read say that it has better parallelization than CBC, but I don't really know what that means. It also includes the authentication portion of the VPN whereas CBC does not (it handles it with some level of SHA encryption).

I've never read anything that suggests its in any way weaker than CBC, in fact everything I've read suggests that it might be more secure. But that's probably more secure in a similar sense to my above analogy about bunkers and bombs.

There are definitely users on this board that could answer your question though.

VAMike

@mattlach:

Do you know what about GCM it is that makes it so much faster? Is it a weaker cipher, or just more efficient somehow?

It's stronger. By combining the encryption and authentication (instead of having, e.g., a separate SHA MAC) it can be more efficiently pipelined in the CPU. Intel also added the PCLMULQDQ instructions mainly to speed up GCM (so it gets an additional hardware assist on newer CPUs).

Pippin

To add to this, AES-256-GCM = AES-256-CTR and SHA256 combined.