Freebsd IP Forwarding performance (question, and some info) [7-stable, current, em, smp]

[Ingo Flaschberger]

Dear Paul,

> I tried all of this :/  still, 256/512 descriptors seem to work the best.
> Happy to let you log into the machine and fiddle around if you want :)

yes, but I'm shure I will also not be able to achieve much more pps.
As it seems that you hit hardware-software-level-barriers, my only idea is 
to test dragonfly bsd, which seems to have less software overhead.

I don't think you will be able to route 64byte packets at 1gbit wirespeed 
(2Mpps) with a current x86 platform.
I hoped to reach 1Mpps with the hardware I mentioned some mails before, 
but 2Mpps is far far away.
Currently I get 160kpps via pci-32mbit-33mhz-1,2ghz mobile pentium.

Perhaps you have some better luck at some different hardware systems
(ppc, mips, ..?) or use freebsd only for routing-table-updates and special 
network-cards (netfpga) for real routing.

Kind regards,
 	Ingo Flaschberger