RE: 2.1.3rc1 Performance RESULTS

["Kreimendahl, Chad J" <Chad.Kreimendahl () umb com>]

Ok, try these following things:  I've included some notes below

-----------------------------------------
This is from /etc/system (I've included the comments from above it)

*Increasing Synchronized Queues to Improve Network Performance
*
*  To increase the size of STREAMS synchronized queues, thereby
*  increasing network performance, add the sq_max_size variable to
*  the /etc/system file.
*
*       set sq_max_size=n
*
*  Set the sq_max_size variable to n, where n is the maximum number
*  of messages that are allowed for each IP queue.
*  values should be incremented in small steps ( 10 ) and never set
higher than 100.

set sq_max_size=100

---------------------------------------------
The following we run in a startup script:

/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_max_buf 8194304
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_recv_hiwat 8194304 


The first one lets more packets sit in each queue.  Setting this high
would make things like web connections to that server seem a little
slower, but will greatly improve high bandwidth sniffing.  The second
changes the high water mark for the buffers in whatever protocol.
(tcp_<whatever> can be changed to udp_<whatever> and works identically).
Of note, xmit_hiwat (alternate to recv_hiwait) is unimportant on links
such as spans, but might be considered if you're actually using that
interface to route traffic.

There may be some other changes that we've done.  However, those 3
settings posted gave us the greatest effect on our end ability to sniff
traffic at high rates.

These settings shouldn't be necessary on a system like a Sun
V210/240/250.. (fire systems)... etc when installed with Solaris 9.  The
drivers for the built-in bge interface(s) are excellent, and the kernel
handles changing between polling/interrupts in brilliant fashion.  


-----Original Message-----
From: Gary_Portnoy () itginc com [mailto:Gary_Portnoy () itginc com] 
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 9:00 AM
To: Kreimendahl, Chad J; Dirk Geschke; Darren Webb
Cc: snort-users () lists sourceforge net; Daniel J. Roelker
Subject: [Snort-users] 2.1.3rc1 Performance RESULTS

So last night I ran the following test:

Captured 1 million packets off the wire, verified the capture with 
capinfo.
Connected my snort sensor (Sun Ultra-2, 1024MB RAM, 2CPU, Quad Ethernet 
card) with a crossover cable to a Sun V120.
> From the V120, injected the packet capture to a snort process running on

the sensor.  The snort config file has no rules, but both the stream4
and 
frag2 preprocessors were on.  I alternated between running the two 
different snort processes.The rate of injection was: 591379.9 bytes/sec 
4.51 megabits/sec 2401 packets/sec as reported by tcpreplay

I did this 3 times with each Snort 2.1.3rc1 with libpcap 0.7.2 library
and 
Snort 2.1.3rc2 with libpcap 0.8.3 library. 

Snort 2.1.3rc1 with libpcap 0.7.2 library:
Attempt 1: Snort analyzed 970415 out of 970415 packets, dropping
0(0.000%) 
packets
Attempt 2: Snort analyzed 975566 out of 975566 packets, dropping
0(0.000%) 
packets
Attempt 3: Snort analyzed 978249 out of 978249 packets, dropping
0(0.000%) 
packets
Total: 2924230 captured, out of 3,000,000 sent. 

Snort 2.1.3rc2 with libpcap 0.8.3 library:
Attempt 1: Snort analyzed 999706 out of 1000000 packets, dropping 
294(0.029%) packets
Attempt 2: Snort analyzed 1000000 out of 1000000 packets, dropping 
0(0.000%) packets
Attempt 3:Snort analyzed 1000000 out of 1000000 packets, dropping 
0(0.000%) packets
Total: 2999706 captured out of 3,000,000.

So, not only is libpcap 0.8.3 more efficient, it also accurately reports

packets dropped (see below), while Snort with libpcap 0.7.2 had no
concept 
of dropped packets, at least on Solaris.

I did a few more tests with libpcap 0.8.3:
First turning on the rules i normally use, about 2/3 of the current 
rule-base:
Snort analyzed 985212 out of 1000000 packets, dropping 14788(1.479%) 
packets
Snort analyzed 978054 out of 1000000 packets, dropping 21946(2.195%) 
packets
Snort analyzed 987043 out of 999996 packets, dropping 12953(1.295%) 
packets 
*** This last one is interesting because it seems to have missed 4
packets 
somewhere, so maybe it's not AS honest as i thought

Then with the rules from above, turning up the rate to 7Mbps:
Snort analyzed 996595 out of 1000000 packets, dropping 3405(0.340%) 
packets
Snort analyzed 988972 out of 1000000 packets, dropping 11028(1.103%) 
packets

Not sure why it reports droping less packets at 7Mbps than at 4.5.

That's all the tests I ran thus far.  If anyone has anything else to 
suggest, I am willing to try it if I have some free time.

In the meantime, does anyone know any way to tune Solaris to make it
more 
efficient at packet captures?

-------------------------------------------
Gary Portnoy






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