On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 12:16:34AM +0200, Daniel Lezcano wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I did some benchmarking on the existing L2 network namespaces.
> 
> These patches are included in the lxc patchset at:
>     http://lxc.sourceforge.net/patches/2.6.20
> The lxc7 patchset series contains Dmitry's patchset
> The lxc8 patchset series contains Eric's patchset
> 
> Here are the following scenarii I made in order to do some simple
> benchmarking on the network namespace. I tested three kernels:
> 
>      * Vanilla kernel 2.6.20
> 
>      * lxc7 with Dmitry's patchset based on 2.6.20
>        * L3 network namespace has been removed to do testing
> 
>      * lxc8 with Eric's patchset based on 2.6.20
> 
> I didn't do any tests on Linux-Vserver because it is L3 namespace and
> it is not comparable with the L2 namespace implementation. If anyone
> is interessted by Linux-Vserver performances, that can be found at
> http://lxc.sf.net. Roughly, we know there is no performance
> degradation.
> 
> For each kernel, several configurations were tested:
> 
>  * vanilla, obviously, only one configuration was tested for reference
>    values.
> 
>  * lxc7, network namespace
>   - compiled out
>   - compiled in
>     - without container
>     - inside a container with ip_forward, route and veth
>     - inside a container with a bridge and veth
> 
>  * lxc8, network namespace
>   - compiled out
>   - compiled in
>     - without container
>     - inside a container with a real network device (eth1 was moved
>       in the container instead of using an etun device)
>     - inside a container with ip_forward, route and etun
>     - inside a container with a bridge and etun
> 
> Each benchmarking has been done with 2 machines running netperf and
> tbench. A dedicated machine with a RH4 kernel run the bench servers.
> 
> For each bench, netperf and tbench, the tests are ran on:
> 
>  * Intel Xeon EM64T, Bi-processor 2,8GHz with hyperthreading
> activated, 4GB of RAM and Gigabyte NIC (tg3)
> 
>  * AMD Athlon MP 1800+, Bi-processor 1,5GHz, 1GB of RAM and Gigabyte
>    NIC (dl2000)
> 
> Each tests are run on these machines in order to have a CPU relative 
> overhead.
> 
> 
> # bench on vanilla
> ===================
> 
> 
>  ----------- --------------------------------------
> | Netperf   | CPU usage (%) | Throughput (Mbits/s) |
>  ----------- --------------------------------------
> | on xeon   |      5.99     |        941.38        |
>  --------------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |     28.17     |        844.82        |
>  --------------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- -----------------------
> | Tbench    | Throughput (MBytes/s) |
>  ----------- -----------------------
> | on xeon   |         66.35         |
>  -----------------------------------
> | on athlon |         65.31         |
>  -----------------------------------
> 
> 
> # bench from Dmitry's patchset
> ==============================
> 
> 
> 1 - with net_ns compiled out
> ----------------------------
> 
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | Netperf   | CPU usage (%) / overhead | Throughput (Mbits/s) / changed |
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | on xeon   |      5.93 / -1 %         |        941.32  / 0 %           |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |     28.89 / +2.5 %       |        842.78 / -0.2 %         |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | Tbench    | Throughput (MBytes/s) / changed |
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | on xeon   |         67.00 / +0.9 %          |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |         65.45 / 0 %             |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> 
>   Observation : no noticeable overhead
> 
> 
> 2 - with net_ns compiled in
> ---------------------------
> 
> 
>     2.1 - without container
>     -----------------------
> 
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | Netperf   | CPU usage (%) / overhead | Throughput (Mbits/s) / changed |
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | on xeon   |      6.23 / +4 %         |        941.35  / 0 %           |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |     28.83 / +2.3 %       |        850.76 / +0.7 %         |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | Tbench    | Throughput (MBytes/s) / changed |
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | on xeon   |         67.00 / 0 %             |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |         65.45 / 0 %             |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> 
>   Observation : no noticeable overhead
> 
> 
>     2.2 - inside the container with veth and routes
>     -----------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | Netperf   | CPU usage (%) / overhead | Throughput (Mbits/s) / changed |
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | on xeon   |      17.14 / +186.1 %      |        941.34  / 0 %         |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |      49.99 / +77.45 %      |        838.85 / +0.7 %       |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | Tbench    | Throughput (MBytes/s) / changed |
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | on xeon   |         66.00 / -0.5 %          |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |         61.00 / -6.65 %         |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> 
>   Observation : CPU overhead is very big, throughput is impacted on
>   the less powerful machine
> 
> 
>     2.3 - inside the container with veth and bridge
>     -----------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | Netperf   | CPU usage (%) / overhead | Throughput (Mbits/s) / changed |
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | on xeon   |      19.14 / +299 %      |        941.18  / 0 %           |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |      49.98 / +77.42 %    |        831.65 / -1.5 %         |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | Tbench    | Throughput (MBytes/s) / changed |
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | on xeon   |         64.00 / -3.5 %          |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |         60.07 / -8.3 %          |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> 
>   Observation : CPU overhead is very big, throughput is impacted on
>   the less powerful machine
> 
> 
> # bench from Eric's patchset
> ============================
> 
> 
> 1 - with net_ns compiled out
> ----------------------------
> 
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | Netperf   | CPU usage (%) / overhead | Throughput (Mbits/s) / changed |
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | on xeon   |      6.04 / +0.8 %       |        941.33  / 0 %           |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |      28.45 / +1 %        |        840.76 /  -0.5 %        |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | Tbench    | Throughput (MBytes/s) / changed |
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | on xeon   |         65.69 / -1 %            |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |         65.35 / -0.2 %          |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> 
>   Observation : no noticeable overhead
> 
> 
> 2 - with net_ns compiled in
> ---------------------------
> 
> 
>     2.1 - without container
>     -----------------------
> 
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | Netperf   | CPU usage (%) / overhead | Throughput (Mbits/s) / changed |
>  ----------- -----------------------------------------------------------
> | on xeon   |      6.02 / +0.5 %       |        941.34  / 0 %           |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |      27.93 / -0.8 %      |        833.53 /  -1.3 %        |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | Tbench    | Throughput (MBytes/s) / changed |
>  ----------- ---------------------------------
> | on xeon   |         66.00 / -0.5 %          |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> | on athlon |         64.94 / -0.9 %          |
>  ---------------------------------------------
> 
>   Observation : no noticeable ove