Network sysctl tuning [was Re: ZFSKnownProblems - needs revision?]

[Freddie Cash]

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Antony Mawer <fbsd-stable at mawer.org> wrote:
> Freddie Cash wrote:
> ...
>> We've also heavily modified /etc/sysctl.conf and upped a bunch of the
>> network-related sysctls.  Doing so increased our SSH throughput from ~30
>> Mbits/sec across all connections to over 90 Mbits/sec per SSH connection.
>
> Are you able to share any of these with the list? It would be useful to
> compare as a lot of these tunings people do individually and it would be
> good to allow others to test in their environments to see if they help, as
> well as potentially adding them to the tuning man-page.

They're all taken from the HPN-SSH website and various google searches
related to HPN-enabled OpenSSH.

I don't know exactly what all the different, individual sysctls do,
nor whether this is the most optimal setup, but here's the sysctl.conf
that we use.  This is on 2 systems using a quad-port gigabit NIC where
the top two ports are connected via lagg(4) and the bottom two ports
are connected via lagg(4), with the two laggX interfaces on separate
networks.

I did a bunch of scp/sftp transfers of 100 MB files filled with random
data pulled from /dev/random between these two boxes tweaking the
options one at a time, but didn't do too much in the way of
scientific/empirical measurements and comparisons beyond the
throughput data that scp/sftp shows.

If there are any glaring errors, gotchas, or "why would you ever do
that"s, let me know.  :)

# General network settings
net.isr.direct=1                        # Whether to enable Direct
Dispatch for netisr


# IP options
net.inet.ip.forwarding=0                # Whether to enable packet
forwarding for NAT/routing
net.inet.ip.process_options=0           # Disable processing of IP
options (nothing uses this field)
net.inet.ip.random_id=1                 # Randomise the IP header ID number
net.inet.ip.redirect=0                  # Whether to allow redirect packets
#net.inet.ip.stealth=0                  # Whether to appear in traceroute output


# ICMP options
net.inet.icmp.icmplim=200               # Limit ICMP packets to this
many per second
net.inet.icmp.drop_redirect=1           # Drop ICMP redirect packets
net.inet.icmp.log_redirect=0            # Don't log ICMP redirect packets


# TCP options
net.inet.tcp.blackhole=1                # Drop packets destined to unused ports
net.inet.tcp.inflight.enable=0          # Use automatic TCP window-scaling
net.inet.tcp.log_in_vain=0              # Don't log the blackholed packets
net.inet.tcp.path_mtu_discovery=1       # Use ICMP type 3 to find the MTU to use
net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_max=16777216       # The max size of the receive
buffer (16 MB)
net.inet.tcp.recvspace=131072           # The initial size in bytes of
the receive buffer
net.inet.tcp.sack.enable=1              # Enable Selective ACKs
net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_max=16777216       # The max size of the send buffer
net.inet.tcp.sendspace=131072           # The initial size in bytes of
the send buffer
net.inet.tcp.syncookies=1               # Enable SYN cookie protection
net.inet.tcp.rfc1323=1                  # Enable RFC1323 extensions
(TCP window scaling)


# UDP options
net.inet.udp.blackhole=1                # Drop packets destined to unused ports
net.inet.udp.checksum=1                 # Enable UDP checksums
net.inet.udp.log_in_vain=0              # Don't log the blackholed packets
net.inet.udp.recvspace=65536            # Size in bytes of the receive buffer


# Debug options
debug.minidump=1                        # Disable the small kernel
core dump (only mem in use)
debug.mpsafevfs=1                       # Enable threaded VFS subsystem


# Kernel options
kern.coredump=0                         # Disable kernel core dumps
kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=4194304             # Set the max size of the
socket buffers (4 MB)
kern.ipc.somaxconn=1024                 # Expand the IP listen queue
kern.maxvnodes=250000                   # Bump up the max number of vnodes


# PCI bus options
hw.pci.enable_msix=1                    # Enable Message Signalled
Interrupts - Extended
hw.pci.enable_msi=1                     # Enable Message Signalled Interrupts
hw.pci.enable_io_modes=1                # Enable alternate I/O access modes

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash at gmail.com