Re: OBSD releases (versions) performance evaluation (speed, resource requirements) - older hardware, etc.

I have deployed dozens of OBSD firewalls utilizing every release from
3.6 to 4.4 for various clients in various settings. Many on bare minimum
hardware and including a couple of Sparc V100's. Each has had slightly
different performance characteristics so it's difficult to cite specific
performance metrics. One universal truth that I have discovered and it
is verified in the documentation: Some NICs definitely perform better
than others when all else is equal. I usually try to install GigE cards
even if the rest of the network is running slower. Cards that have
worked well for me in virtually every application include 3COM, Intel
and SMC. Additionally I have noted that generally speaking there seems
to be some slight performance gains in the later releases (say 4.1 and
newer) on installs that were merely upgraded from older releases. I
attribute this to improvements made by the developers between releases
but have no hard and specific "benchmarks" for you. Overall I would
submit to you that an upgrade from 3.2 to current would almost certainly
be worth the time and effort required. However your mileage may vary.

Hope this helps.

-Larry A. Barr
South Pacific Software & Consulting


Michael Grigoni wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Having read each release description from 3.2 to 4.4 (current), I get
> an impression
> of expanding features without mention of any benchmarks or caveats
> regarding changes
> in performance on low-end or minimum hardware.  I need to make some
> tough decisions
> and need some input.
>
> Since 2002, I have been running OBSD 3.2 on a diskless and headless
> Sun IPX
> (sparc sun4c) with three 'le' interfaces and 48 MB of ram, as a border
> router to
> an ISP, over a symmetric 256kbps link.  It has served very well and is
> very stable.
> It also hosts 'sip express router' for VoIP, an 'rtpproxy' process,
> 'snort',
> 'pf' with a rather large ruleset, 'stunnel', IPSec ISAKMP VPNs, and a
> variety
> of inhouse processes.  I have recently set up multicasting and run
> 'mrouted'
> (3.8 from the distribution, and 3.9.x from sources).
>
> In order to peer with a site on Internet2 for native multicast, I have
> been
> advised that I must run PIM-SM.  I have built a PIM-DM routing daemon
> which works,
> but I get a kernel trap (0x07) after a random amount of time.  I see
> that PIM support
> was added in release 3.7, but that release differs so much from 3.2
> that backporting
> will be difficult.
>
> Because I am running on old, slow hardware, with minimal RAM, and have
> a very customized
> configuration and lots of in-house programs, migrating to 3.7 or later
> would be a huge
> project. The changes in APIs, 'pf' functionality, filesystem
> conventions, code size,
> ram and cpu requirements, etc. are of great concern.  My use of OBSD
> is solely for
> routing and remote access, and any changes and additions to more
> recent releases to
> support desktop or server features would be superfluous and resource
> consuming if
> not able to be deselected in a kernel build.
>
> What is known about performance of releases past 3.2 on my hardware
> platform?
>
> Does anyone have PIM patches for other flavors of BSD, or earlier
> releases of OBSD, that
> I could use in my attempt to patch 3.2?
>
> All replies are much appreciated.
>
> Michael Grigoni
> Cybertheque Museum
>
>

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