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    10G Throughput with Snort

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IDS/IPS
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    • A
      aadder
      last edited by

      I'm running pfSense version 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1

      The spec of the computer that I have my firewall on.

      Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820 CPU @ 3.60GHz
      Current: 3600 MHz, Max: 3601 MHz
      8 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 4 core(s) x 2 hardware threads
      AES-NI CPU Crypto: Yes (inactive)
      64Gigs of ram

      I know Snort currently is single threaded. Can't wait until version 2.5 of pfSense comes out. I also run pfBlockerNG on the firewall.

      I'm needing some suggestions for my next build. I was thinking about getting a AMD Ryzen 9 5900X. 64Gigs of ram since I can get ECC unbuffered memory stick for $75.00 each. Two 500Gig SSD running in raid 1.

      Thanks in advance

      DaddyGoD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • DaddyGoD
        DaddyGo @aadder
        last edited by DaddyGo

        @aadder said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

        I'm needing some suggestions for my next build.

        Hi,

        I will honestly tell you that pfSense is a routing capable NGFW. (and knows much more)
        You don't really need a power machine for this purpose, you donโ€™t think of it as a server, especially in a SOHO environment...keep in mind that, your wallet shouldnโ€™t be empty, because of your high electricity bill...

        So after my preliminary, where would you like to achieve 10G throughput with Snort and in what environment?

        Suricata is multi-threaded, anyway ๐Ÿ˜‰

        in terms of hardware, by the way, this should be your bible:
        https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.3R/hardware.html

        Cats bury it so they can't see it!
        (You know what I mean if you have a cat)

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Cool_CoronaC
          Cool_Corona
          last edited by

          You wouldnt be able to achieve 10G with IDS/IPS on on nothing less than servergrade hardware.

          EOD.

          DaddyGoD H 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • DaddyGoD
            DaddyGo @Cool_Corona
            last edited by DaddyGo

            @Cool_Corona said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

            You wouldnt be able to achieve 10G with IDS/IPS

            that's why I asked ๐Ÿ˜‰

            +++edit:
            although this may not be entirely true... ๐Ÿ˜‰
            https://blog.mellanox.com/2018/08/defining-smartnic/

            Cats bury it so they can't see it!
            (You know what I mean if you have a cat)

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • H
              heper @Cool_Corona
              last edited by

              @Cool_Corona said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

              You wouldnt be able to achieve 10G with IDS/IPS on on nothing ~~less than servergrade hardware.

              EOD.~~

              i haven't come across any public posts of people who manage 10G emix traffic with pfSense & snort or suricata ....
              i'm not claiming it's impossible .... but i doubt just throwing a lot of hardware at it will get you there

              Cool_CoronaC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Cool_CoronaC
                Cool_Corona @heper
                last edited by

                @heper said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                @Cool_Corona said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                You wouldnt be able to achieve 10G with IDS/IPS on on nothing ~~less than servergrade hardware.

                EOD.~~

                i haven't come across any public posts of people who manage 10G emix traffic with pfSense & snort or suricata ....
                i'm not claiming it's impossible .... but i doubt just throwing a lot of hardware at it will get you there

                You will come close to wirespeed but it takes a hefty couple of many core XEON's and a lot of memory/good nics.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • bmeeksB
                  bmeeks
                  last edited by

                  I honestly don't think either binary (snort or suricata) is capable of sustained 10G operation regardless of hardware thrown at it. At least not with anything approaching a decent rule set enabled. Maybe it would be close to that speed if all the packets were jumbo frames with maxed-out payloads, but with a typical mix of small and large packets I think it would be tough to meet 10G througput.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • A
                    aadder
                    last edited by

                    I have 700 series Intel nic cards 4port and 2port. My switch comes to me Monday 9000 series Cisco 48Port. I won't be switching to Xeon I'll use Epyc CPUs. No big deal about it not being able to. I'll get a palo alto firewall. Thanks everyone.

                    H DaddyGoD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • H
                      heper @aadder
                      last edited by

                      @aadder said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                      I'll get a palo alto firewall.

                      They seem to have products that can do IDS at 10g mix.... Starting at around $40000

                      DaddyGoD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • DaddyGoD
                        DaddyGo @heper
                        last edited by

                        @heper said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                        Starting at around $40000

                        you have the winning point ๐Ÿค˜ ๐Ÿ˜‰

                        Cats bury it so they can't see it!
                        (You know what I mean if you have a cat)

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • DaddyGoD
                          DaddyGo @aadder
                          last edited by

                          @aadder said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                          I won't be switching to Xeon I'll use Epyc CPUs.

                          It doesn't matter that, ... - Xeon or Epyc (AMD) we arenโ€™t talking about this here.... think of "netmap" stuff in IPS, F.E. - and many other factors...

                          after all, we did not receive a response to the environment of use???

                          where is this insane speed needed?
                          and / or next to the examination of packages? (IDS/IPS)

                          Cats bury it so they can't see it!
                          (You know what I mean if you have a cat)

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • bmeeksB
                            bmeeks
                            last edited by

                            @heper is correct. I did not mean to imply nothing could do 10G IDS, but was instead referring to the FOSS (Free Open Source Software) world. Sure, with customized hardware and proprietary software, anything is possible for a price.

                            But there is quite a world of cost difference between "free" with pfSense and Snort or Suricata and "$40,000 USD or more" for proprietary systems.

                            DaddyGoD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • DaddyGoD
                              DaddyGo @bmeeks
                              last edited by

                              @bmeeks said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                              But there is quite a world of cost difference between "free" with pfSense and Snort or Suricata and "$40,000 USD or more" for proprietary systems.

                              Hello Bill,

                              I just want to note this Bill, when I watching a lot of Reddit (homlab porn or other) topic(s)

                              more and more guys are building a 10Gig network at home, with cheap, (but) working HPE, Cisco, Dell, stuff, they are buying on eBay for pennies

                              they think it is necessary at home or have benefits...
                              but this approach is superfluous...

                              and many people think that speed + IDS / IPS does something serious in a 5-15 endpoint network

                              Cats bury it so they can't see it!
                              (You know what I mean if you have a cat)

                              bmeeksB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • bmeeksB
                                bmeeks @DaddyGo
                                last edited by bmeeks

                                @DaddyGo said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                                @bmeeks said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                                But there is quite a world of cost difference between "free" with pfSense and Snort or Suricata and "$40,000 USD or more" for proprietary systems.

                                Hello Bill,

                                I just want to note this Bill, when I watching a lot of Reddit (homlab porn or other) topic(s)

                                more and more guys are building a 10Gig network at home, with cheap, (but) working HPE, Cisco, Dell, stuff, they are buying on eBay for pennies

                                they think it is necessary at home or have benefits...
                                but this approach is superfluous...

                                and many people think that speed + IDS / IPS does something serious in a 5-15 endpoint network

                                I agree with you that having 10G at home is not a huge necessity for now. I won't be so confident, though, to say it is "never needed". That would be like the legendary Bill Gates quote from 1981 where he reportedly uttered "640K ought to be enough for everybody". While the fact whether he actually said that is still contested (he says "no", but others say "yes"), it makes for a fun example of poor future planning.

                                I will say that I don't see the current Snort 2.9.x binary branch being capable of 10G IDS due to its single-threaded nature. Well, unless someone invents and then sells a cheap quantum-based processor ... ๐Ÿ™‚, or one based on Star Trek di-lithium crystals or some other exotic material.

                                Suricata perhaps might get there, but even it still needs a lot of work to make all parts multithreaded. There are still some performance bottlenecks in the Suricata multi-threaded engine. Plus it requires a lot of very complicated tuning (as in setting various oblique parameter values in the suricata.yaml conf file) to reach maximum speeds.

                                Finally, as has been mentioned on these forums multile times in the recent past, the rise of encrypted network traffic has effectively neutered most IDS/IPS installations unless the admin is doing some kind of MITM interception and decryption with proxying. The IDS can't peer into encrypted payloads. And there are loads of them today with TLS and SSL being so pervasive. In fact, cleartext network traffic is just about an anachronism now.

                                DaddyGoD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • DaddyGoD
                                  DaddyGo @bmeeks
                                  last edited by

                                  @bmeeks said in 10G Throughput with Snort:

                                  That would be like the legendary Bill Gates quote from 1981 where he reportedly uttered "640K ought to be enough for everybody".

                                  this is a good quote, I heard it a long time ago :)- MS + Bill G + DOS :)

                                  I was almost 20 at the time...and I was past these, -

                                  the historical summary (you know, I enjoyed these at the time):
                                  (and now I can barely turn my head when the world is rushing)

                                  https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8088
                                  https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Spectrum
                                  https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64
                                  (of which there are two more in the attic)
                                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT
                                  https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_III
                                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMX_(instruction_set)

                                  and
                                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simons%27_BASIC
                                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x
                                  https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95
                                  https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98

                                  How about this?

                                  https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/19/nvidia_q3_2021/
                                  https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/esxionarm_is_real_and_vmware/
                                  https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/15/nvidia_ai_supercomputer_italy_2022/

                                  this world will leap enormously

                                  Cats bury it so they can't see it!
                                  (You know what I mean if you have a cat)

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