FreeBSD bind performance in FreeBSD 7

Mark Linimon linimon at lonesome.com
Wed Mar 5 23:04:51 UTC 2008


> > * I am trying to understand what is different about the ISC
> > configuration but have not yet found the cause.

> It's called "Anti-FreeBSD bias".  You won't find anything.

If this is true, please try to explain to me the following:

 - ISC hosts 5 Netra 1s that comprise most of our sparc64 package build
   cluster.  They are allowing us to add 4 more next week.

 - ISC hosts 3 amd64 machines for our amd64 package build cluster.

 - ISC used to host 3 alpha machines, until we retired them.

 - ISC hosts ftp4.freebsd.org, which is one of the 2 machines that the
   address ftp.freebsd.org rotors to.  This is an extremely high-
   bandwidth machine.

 - ISC hosts several other development machines (I am not aware of
   all the exact ones).

All of this has been in place for years, with the space, power, and
cooling all donated for free.

Kris and others have been doing a tremendous amount of work over the
past 2 years to identify and fix performance problems in FreeBSD.
There have been literally hundreds of regression tests run, resulting
in a large number of cycles of commit/test.  Sometimes the commits do
what we expect, sometimes no.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  The difference
in performance between 6.3R and 7.0R is primarily due to all this
effort.  ISC's re-tests seems to confirm the improvements.

The current speculation is that the difference in the measurements we're
seeing could well be due to our drivers.  If so, let's identify and fix
the problems.  Otherwise, let's try to understand whether there are any
meaningful differences in the way the tests are being run.

Casting aspersions on someone's methodology or motives just because
you (or I) don't like the results is merely nonsense.

AFAICT ISC's business model primarily consists of them selling the
ability of bind to perform under load.  That's the variable they have
to optimize for.  Let's hope that we are part of helping them to do
just that.

mcl


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