[netperf-talk] Which is the best hardware configuration for Netperf-Server?

[Frank Schuster]

> Further, what is the goal of this netperf server?  To allow those accessing it 
> to see how fast *their* connection to the server might be?

Yeah, this is what I want to see. The measurement of the throughput from a client anywhere in the LAN (from different places) to the server.

> 
> >  > Is netperf supporting multicore processors?
> > 
> > Netperf 2.x is single threaded.  The netserver server forks a new
> > child for each connection.  This means you can run multiple processes
> > easily.  Note that netperf2 does not coordinate between multiple
> > processes, so you need to be careful not to rely on the numbers
> > produced by those multiple processes, as they may be inaccurate (say
> > process A starts 0.5 seconds before process B -- it will have the
> > network to itself for 0.5 seconds at the start, and B will have the
> > network to itself for 0.5 seconds at the end, and your test will
> > report overly optimistic bandwidth).  Either use system tools
> > (netstat -i 1) to calculate b/w from multiple processes, or use a
> > different tool (netperf4, uperf, or iperf as a last resort) that was
> > intended for multiple threads.
> 
> Netperf4 is indeed the intended took for concurrent testing. However, there is a 
> way to (ab)use the confidence intervals functionality in netperf2 to be 
> reasonably confident that skew error from the lack of synchronization isn't 
> excessive.
> 
> http://www.netperf.org/svn/netperf2/trunk/doc/netperf.html#Using-Netperf-to-Measure-Aggregate-Performance

Thank you for this link, I wlil try it in a few days.

> 
> > I'll let Rick talk about netperf4.  I'm too dumb to figure out how
> > to use it, so even though I'm a netperf2 "expert", I've never used
> > netperf4.
> 
> To be perfectly frank, I have trouble using netperf4 too :)  It does rather need 
> some UI improvements. The XML config files are quite powerful, but a trifle 
> cumbersome.
> 
> > You can easily utilize more than one core by using netperf's CPU
> > binding options (-T$locCPUnum,$remoteCPUnum) and binding the
> > NIC's interrupt handler(s) to different cores than the
> > netperf/netserver processes. 
> 
> Expanding a bit, because I've been remis in updating doc/netperf.texi to 
> properly document the global -T option:
> 
> -T N   # bind netperf and netserver to CPU id N on their respective systems
> -T N,  # bind netperf only, let netserver run where it may
> -T  ,M # bind netserver only, let netperf run where it may
> -T N,M # bind netperf to CPU N and netserver to CPU M
> 
> BTW, this is a netperf option, not a netserver option.

You wrote that with the character M I can "bind" the process to another CPU on the server side, is that right?
So it will be possible that I start from one Client two netperf processes the first with "-T,1" and the second with "-T,2" ?
And where the numbering begins with 0 or 1?

Regards
Frank

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