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

We are always on the look out for performance enhancements.  Pf has
gotten many over the years.  You really should upgrade to -current and
enjoy the beauty that is 4.4-ish.

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 05:53:35PM -0600, 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