Hello, I'm working with a dual xeon platform with 4 dual e1000 cards on different pci-x buses. I'm having trouble getting better performance with the second cpu enabled (ht disabled). With a UP kernel (redhat's 2.4.18), I can route about 2.9 gigabits/s at around 90% cpu utilization. With a SMP kernel (redhat's 2.4.18), I can route about 2.8 gigabits/s with both cpus at around 90% utilization. This suggests to me that the network code is serialized. I would expect one of two things from my understanding of the 2.4.x networking improvements (softirqs allowing execution on more than one cpu): 1.) with smp I would get ~2.9 gb/s but the combined cpu utilization would be that of one cpu at 90%. 2.) or with smp I would get more than ~2.9 gb/s. Has anyone been able to utilize more than one cpu with pure forwarding? Note: I realize that I am not using a stock kernel. I was in the past, but I ran into the same problem (smp not improving performance), just at lower speeds. Therefore, this problem is neither introduced nor solved by redhat's kernel. If anyone has suggestions for improvements, I can move back to a stock kernel. Note #2: I've tried tweaking a lot of different things including binding irq's to specific cpus, playing around with e1000 modules settings, etc. Thanks in advance and please CC me with any suggestions as I'm not subscribed to the list. Avery Fay - : send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
