[Soekris] Performance testing...
Hi everyone. Over the years, there has been much talk about network performance of various Soekris models. I think it might be interesting to post some standardized results based on agreed-upon metrics and test cases. I currently have access to layer 2-3 and layer 4-7 test gear. if we can gather measurement requirements on the wiki at http://wiki.soekris.info, I am willing to put the effort in to get the tests performed. On the hardware front, I'd need test units (they'd be returned after the tests are performed). On the software side, we'd need to agree on a set of OSes and configs as well as defining a test suite. I can stub out some sample test cases on the wiki, but I'll need the community to complete the list. Also, please let me know if you think this is a worthy use of time and resources, or if you think it's a complete waste of time. If anyone from Soekris would like to chime in, what types of tests might you like to see? Thanks! -Andy ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
[Soekris] Lexar CF 8Gb 300x UDMA
Hi All on the list, I'm trying to get working a Lexar CF 8Gb 300x UDMA using a net5501-70. ComBIOS v1.33 reports the CF as below, but only a after issue a reboot command from the ComBIOS prompt: Pri Mas LEXAR ATA FLASH CARDLBA Xlt 972-255-63 7815 Mbyte Below there are my settings ConSpeed = 57600 ConLock = Enabled ConMute = Enabled BIOSentry = Enabled PCIROMS = Enabled PXEBoot = Disabled FLASH = Primary BootDelay = 5 FastBoot = Disabled BootPartition = Disabled BootDrive = 80 81 F0 FF ShowPCI = Enabled Reset = Hard CpuSpeed = Default Whenever I get it to boot the kernel 2.6.26.5-28.fc8 reports the CF as scsi0 : pata_cs5536 scsi1 : pata_cs5536 ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xe000 irq 14 ata2: DUMMY ata1.00: CFA: LEXAR ATA FLASH CARD, 20071016, max UDMA/100 ata1.00: 15630048 sectors, multi 0: LBA ata1.00: limited to UDMA/33 due to 40-wire cable ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33 scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA LEXAR ATA FLASH 2007 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 15630048 512-byte hardware sectors (8003 MB) sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 15630048 512-byte hardware sectors (8003 MB) sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk So the question is does the above Lexar CF works with suck net5501-70? Does it's supported or not? Thanks in advance. Roberto Fichera. ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] Performance testing...
On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 11:53, Andy Michaels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi everyone. Over the years, there has been much talk about network performance of various Soekris models. I think it might be interesting to post some standardized results based on agreed-upon metrics and test cases. Metrics test cases will probably be easy to agree on; what constitutes appropriate tuning on the candidate OS and whether to allow those tunings will likely be harder. I personally would like to see either multiple untuned OSes or a single carefully-tuned one generally accepted to have the fastest stack. If this is to go on for a while you could add the tunings at a later point, but as is usual with such efforts, the first round is usually the only one that gets done. On the software side, we'd need to agree on a set of OSes and configs as well as defining a test suite. I can stub out some sample test cases on the wiki, but I'll need the community to complete the list. Stub away. Mousetrap and all. Also, please let me know if you think this is a worthy use of time and resources, or if you think it's a complete waste of time. Benchmarking is generally less worthwhile since it seldom reflects real-world scenarios. Unless you have a huge amount of time on your hands, I would suggest aiming at edge cases (worst best scenarios) that outline the performance envelope instead of trying to color it in. ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] vpn1401/1411: Latest stable HIFN 795x Linux driver
Hello, the driver is not yet ready. It produced a kernel panic error. I will send it to the developer and I will post here when the driver is ready. Regards Andreas Andreas Gerlich wrote: Hello, I'am in contact with the developer of the HIFN 795x driver for Linux, Mr. Evgeniy Polyakov. The hifn_795x driver uses the HIFN 7955 crypto engine on the vpn1401/1411 boards of Soekris. In the URL wget http://www.mathematik.uni-ulm.de/users/ag/hifn_795x.c is the newest HIFN 795x driver (hifn_795x.c) for the Linux kernel 2.6.27.4. It runs also with the newest latest stable kernel 2.6.27.6 from 2008-11-13 18:42 UTC from www.kernel.org. (I test it and use this kernel on my net5501-70 board.) Replace the hifn_795x.c in /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.x/drivers/crypto/ . IMPORTANT: Disable the use of the geode-aes engine when you == make the kernel !!! Give in make menuconfig -- Cryptographic API -- Hardware crypto devices -- Support for the Geode LX AES engine (give no) -- Driver HIFN 795x crypto accelerator chips (give m for module) The two hardware crypto engines can not work parallel!!! The default kernel loads both drivers!!! If both drivers are loaded, you can't use the hifn_795x!!! Instead are used the slow software implementation of AES when you use keysize 256 bits. The geode-aes engine can only work with keysize of 128 bits. Short benchmarks: - Hardware which I use: net5501-70 with vpn1401 (PCI-Card) (Users with vpn1411 mini-pci-card, please report it if the driver works with this card.) Software which I use: Latest stable kernel 2.6.27.6 from www.kernel.org. Chiper of the crypted partition: aes-cbc-essiv:sha256, keysize: 256 bits With hifn_795x driver: -- (/misc is mounted to the crypted partition) piepmatz:/misc# time dd if=/dev/zero of=xxx.img bs=1024 count=70 70+0 Datensätze ein 70+0 Datensätze aus 71680 Bytes (717 MB) kopiert, 68,0707 s, 10,5 MB/s real1m9.206s user0m0.536s sys 0m7.312s piepmatz:/misc# time cat xxx.img /dev/null real1m12.737s user0m0.080s sys 0m2.596s piepmatz:/misc# -- === As referece the software implementation of AES: --- piepmatz:/misc# time dd if=/dev/zero of=xxx.img bs=1024 count=70 70+0 Datensätze ein 70+0 Datensätze aus 71680 Bytes (717 MB) kopiert, 128,616 s, 5,6 MB/s real2m8.711s user0m0.616s sys 0m6.652s piepmatz:/misc# time cat xxx.img /dev/null real2m2.761s user0m0.080s sys 0m2.368s piepmatz:/misc# --- With the HIFN 7955 crypto engine the throughput is 10,5 MB/s, nearly the double of the software implementation of AES. Therefore the time is nearly the half. Regards Andreas Gerlich -- Andreas Gerlich, University of Ulm, Germany open source project -- http://yaze-ag.de/ (Yet Another Z80 Emulator) ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] Installing Debian Linux from a CD
On Fri, 2008-11-21 at 23:35 +0100, Bill Maas wrote: Hi Robin, for the really desperate there is yet another escape, which I've tried with floppies with success, but never with a CF card: - dd a kernel onto the boot device starting at sector 0 - dd an initrd image right after it using the seek or skip option (this involes keeping track of the kernel size in sectors!) Error: kernel size in bytes. No big deal really.. - set the root device offset in the kernel with rdev(8). From the manual: Its use is strongly discouraged. Use a boot loader like SysLinux or LILO instead. But those aren't available, are they?. Agreed, it's dirty, hackish. low-level stuff, and you'll have to figure out the details yourself, but in your case it may be just the tool you need. I'm not even sure if the Soekris comBIOS will be able to load the Linux kernel just like that (with floppies + a PC it always worked). If it does, and if you use the Debian Installer image as the initrd image, you should be able to install Debian GNU/Linux as if nothing weird had ever happened;). Bill On Thu, 2008-11-20 at 21:04 +0100, Robin Kipp wrote: Hi Bill, Good idea... The only problem is I don't have a Linux system I could use to copy Debian on the CF card :-( Robin -- Debian Package Management System: The Horror. ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] Installing Debian Linux from a CD
Robin, On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 09:04:42PM +0100, Robin Kipp wrote: Hi Bill, Good idea... The only problem is I don't have a Linux system I could use to copy Debian on the CF card :-( Just another idea : would it be usefull to make available for you, by FTP for example, an image of an already installed Etch (or maybe Lenny) hard drive ? IIRC, with a software like Winimage under Windows (you've got a Windows, rigft ?), it should than be possible to write this image on your hard drive / CF Card, and have the soekris to boot. If it boots OK, you will get pure Debian :-) Recently, I've transfered an Etch install from a hard disk to a CF Card like this, but all was done under Linux. I still have the image somewhere on my backup drive... Just drop me a line in private if you're interested, and we can see together for the details. A+ -- JF ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] Installing Debian Linux from a CD
Hi Bill, that's an interesting idea, hehe... :-) The only problem is this also requires a running Linux I could use to copy the kernel onto the CF card which I don't have :-( Robin ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] FreeBSD on Geode
On Wed Nov 19 16:47 , PatrickLamaizière sent: Le Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:26:43 +0100, Matthias Luft [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : And this is exactly what I'm planning to do: building a small homeserver on a Geode LX. So my main concern is about the performance: Could anyone tell me the, how much throughtput on a 100Mbit network via scp is possible? This would be a great clue for me! With FreeBSD Current on my net5501: Around 3.0 MB/s, with a patch upon openssl to make it uses the AES engine of the geode : 5.5 MB/s I can confirm 3.2 MByte/sec scping a 3.3MB kernel file of a CF card. No patches, just a NanoBSD build with a custom minimized kernel. If I read 100MB out of /dev/zero with ssh, it goes down to 2.9. -Jed net5501# uname -a FreeBSD net5501 6.3-RELEASE-p4 FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE-p4 #0: Mon Sep 29 21:05:32 EDT 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/nanobsd.custom/usr/src/sys/FOO i386 macmini2:~ foo$ scp [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/boot/kernel/kernel /dev/null Password: kernel100% 3277KB 3.2MB/s 00:01 macmini2:~ foo$ ssh -l foo net5501 dd if=/dev/zero count=102400 bs=1024 /dev/null Password: 102400+0 records in 102400+0 records out 104857600 bytes transferred in 35.934339 secs (2918033 bytes/sec) macmini2:~ foo$ ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
