[OpenIndiana-discuss] CIFS performance issues

Sun Jan 22 22:37:55 UTC 2012

I don't understand what you mean with PCI-x settings and where to check 
them out. The hardware is not PCI-X, it is PCIe. The affected LSI HBA is 
a discrete PCIe card that operates in IT-mode. As in system logs I 
assume you mean /var/adm/messages and I could not find anything there.

If this was only a hard disk controller issue (I made sure that there 
are enough lanes for it) then I wouldn't expect applications such as SSH 
to be affected by it.

The settings of the Intel NIC card is not in the BIOS, at least not what 
I can see (i.e. there is no visible BIOS of the discrete NIC like it is 
for the LSI SAS controller during POST). So, I'm not entirely sure what 
settings for the NIC you are referring to.
Robin.

On 2012-01-22 20:28, Open Indiana wrote:
> A very stupid answer, but have you looked at the bios and inspected the
> settings of the network devices and /or PCIx ? How is your bios setup (AHCI
> or raid or ??) ?
>
> Do you see any error in the system logs?
>
> To my opinion your system swallows in the datatransfers. Either on the
> NIC<->montherboard side or at the montherboard<->  harddiskcontroller side.
> Do your extra NIC's and the LSI share the same PCI-x settings? Do they both
> support all settings?
>
> B,
>
> Roelof
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Axelsson [mailto:gu99roax at student.chalmers.se]
> Sent: zondag 22 januari 2012 19:38
> To: OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> Subject: [OpenIndiana-discuss] CIFS performance issues
>
> In the past, I used OpenSolaris b134 which I then updated to OpenIndiana
> b148 and never did I experience performance issues related to the network
> connection (and that was when using two of the "infamous"
> RTL8111DL OnBoard ports). Now that I have swapped the motherboard and the
> hard drive and later added a 2-port Intel EXPI9402PT NIC (because of driver
> issues with the Realtek NIC that wasn't there before), I performed a fresh
> install of OpenIndiana.
>
> Since then I experience intermittent network freeze-ups that I cannot link
> to faults of the storage pool (iostat -E returns 0 errors). I have had this
> issue both with the dual port Intel controller as well as with a single port
> Intel controller (EXPI9400PT) and the Realtek 8111E OnBoard NIC. The storage
> pool is behind an LSI MegaRAID 1068e based controller using no port
> extenders.
>
> In detail (9400PT+8111E):
> -------------------------
> I was running a Virtual Machine with VirtualBox 3.2.14 with (1) a bridged
> network connection and was accessed over the network using (2) VBox RDP
> connection and (3) a ZFS based CIFS share to be accessed from a Windows
> computer over the network. These applications were administrated both over
> (4) SSH (port 2244) and (5) VNC (using vncserver). A typical start of the VM
> was done with 'screen VBoxHeadless --startvm ...'
>
> I assigned the network ports the following way:
>
> e1000g: VBox RDP, VNC, SSH
> rge0: Virtual Machine Network Connection (Bridged)
>
> I tried various combinations but the connection froze intermittently for all
> applications. The bridged network connection was worst. When I SSHed over
> rge0, the connection was frequently severed which is was not over e1000.
>
> So I pulled the plug on the rg0 and let everything go through the e1000
> connection. freeze-ups became more frequent and it seemed like the Bridged
> connection was causing this issue because the connection didn't freeze like
> that when the VM wasn't running.
>
> Note that I didn't assign the CIFS share to any particular port but calls to
> <computername>  were assigned to the e1000 port in the /etc/inet/hosts file.
> -------------------------
>
> In detail (9402PT):
> -------------------
> In this setup I run essentially the same applications but all through the
> 9402PT which has two ports (e1000g1 and e1000g2). So I assign the
> applications the following way:
>
> e1000g1: VBox RDP, SSH,<computername>  (in /etc/inet/hosts)
> e1000g2: Bridged connection to the virtual machine
>
> So while running the virtual machine on the server, having an open SSH
> connection to it and a command prompt pointing (cd x:\) at the CIFS share
> (which is mapped as a network drive, say "X:") I started a media player and
> played an audio file over the CIFS share which made the connection freeze.
>
> The freezing affected the media player and the command prompt but the RDP
> connection worked and access to internet inside the VM was flawless.
> The SSH connection was frozen as well. After a few minutes it became
> responsive and iostat -E reported no errors. The command prompt and the
> media player were still frozen but "ls<path to CIFS shared contents>"
> worked fine over the SSH connection. Shortly after that the CIFS connection
> came back and things seem to run ok.
>
> So in conclusion the freeze-ups are still there but less frequent. I have
> tried VirtualBox 4.1.8 but the ethernet connection is worse with that
> version which is why I downgraded to 3.2.14 (which was published _after_
> 4.1.8).
> -------------------
>
> These issues occur on server grade hardware using drivers that are/were
> certified by Sun (as I understand it). Moreover, CIFS and ZFS are the core
> functionality of OpenIndiana so it is quite essential that the network works
> properly and is stable.
>
> I'm sorely tempted to issue a bug report but I would want some advice on how
> to troubleshoot and provide relevant bug reports. There are no entries in
> the /var/adm/messages that are related to the latest freeze-up mentioned
> above and I couldn't find any when running the prior setups. These
> freeze-ups don't happen all the time so it isn't easy to consistently
> reproduce them.
>
> Robin.
>
>
>
>
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