Re: nfs write speed performance... still

[Joel Andersson <joel_(_at_)_nino_(_dot_)_se>]

On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:44:36AM -0800, Peter Hessler wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:36:37 +0100
> Antoine Jacoutot <ajacoutot_(_at_)_lphp_(_dot_)_org> wrote:
> 
> :Hi :)
> :
> :I know some improvements on NFS were made with 3.6, but I'l still
> :experiencing the same unsolvable problem I've been having for a while now.
> :I am no coder, so there's nothing much I can do to help resolve this issue,
> : except testing, trying... anything. I would really like to use OpenBSD as
> : an 
> :NFS server in production environment.
> :
> :The problem I'm facing is that NFS writes are _really_ slow and, while
> :copying a file to an NFS server, I cannot do anything anymore (since /home
> :is also mounted on NFS). It looks like if my /home was mounted over a 56k
> :connexion and that I was already downloading a file at full speed...
> :
> :Here is my configuration ; note that I did not provide the dmesg since 
> :there're 2 machines involved, I did not want to make this message look to 
> :huge, but let me know if you need it.
> :
> :** openbsd_nfs_server **
> :- OpenBSD-3.6
> :- xl0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
> 
> :** openbsd_nfs_client **
> :- OpenBSD-3.6
> :- xl0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
> 
> I had nothing but problems with xl(4) cards.  When I swapped them to dc(4),
> my nfs writes went from 600K/sec to 6M/sec.  This was on an unused[1]
> 100baseT network, with a cheapo netgear switch.
> 
> [1] My home network, which I unplugged everyone else during the tests.
> 
> -- 
> Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming:
> 	Never test for an error condition you don't know how to
> 	handle.
> 

I don't really know if this adds anything to your discussion, but...

I have a OpenBSD firewall wich amongst others have two xl "internal"
cards; 3Com 3c905B 100Base-TX" and "3Com 3c905C 100Base-TX". One is
connected to a OpenBSD 3.5 server and the other to a debian workstation.
NFS transfer speeds have been somewhat unstable, but still not that
slow. After I upgraded the firewall to 3.6 NFS speed and stability
improved amazingly. NFS read and write operations to and from these
computers vary from 6MB/sec to 11MB/sec, and is *stable*. That is, I use
xl cards wich perform fine with NFS.

/Joel