Subject: unstable 10GBE performance with recent kernels (> 3.0.X)

From: Stefan Priebe - Profihost AG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:22:20 +0200

Hello list,

i've discovered very unstable 10GBE performance using recent kernels. 
I'm using some optimized settings mentioned by intel here 
(part:Improving Performance): 
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/5874/eng/README.txt

I'm using Intel X520 cards (ixgbe driver version: 3.9.17-NAPI in all 
tests).

I'm measuring the performance with iperf.

With 3.0.32 i get constant 9,90 Gbit/s in both directions simultaneously.

With 3.4.2 or 3.5.0-rc2 it get sometimes 9,9gbit/s - sometimes 3gbit/s 
or even sometimes only 1gbit/s throughput.

I also tried to change the tcp_congestion_control from cubic to reno, 
bic and highspeed but no change.

I also tried to bisect the issue but there are so many changes in the 
net kernel part that i'm unable to identify the problem as with some 
commits i only get 0-300kb/s performance.

Any ideas?

Greets
Stefan