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Title: OpenBSD and Linux comparison: data transfer benchmark |
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Author: Solène |
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Date: 14 November 2021 |
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Tags: openbsd networking |
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Description: |
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# Introduction |
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I had a high suspicion about something but today I made measurements. |
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My feeling is that downloading data from OpenBSD use more "upload data" |
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than on other OS |
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I originally thought about this issue when I found that using OpenVPN |
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on OpenBSD was limiting my download speed because I was reaching the |
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upload limit of my DSL line, but it was fine on Linux. From there, |
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I've been thinking since then that OpenBSD was using more out data but |
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I never measured anything before. |
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# Testing protocol |
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Now that I have an OpenBSD router it was easy to make the measures with |
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a match rule and a label. I'll be downloading a specific file from a |
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specific server a few times with each OS, so I'm adding a rule matching |
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this connection. |
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```pf.conf rule |
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match proto tcp from 10.42.42.32 to 145.238.169.11 label benchmark |
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``` |
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Then, I've been downloading this file three times per OS and resetting |
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counter after each download and saved the results from "pfctl -s |
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labels" command. |
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OpenBSD comp70.tgz file from an OpenBSD mirror |
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The variance of each result per OS was very low, I used the average of |
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each columns as the final result per OS. |
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# Raw results |
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```results |
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OS total packets total bytes packets OUT bytes OUT packets I… |
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----- ------------- ----------- ----------- --------- ---------… |
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OpenBSD 175348 158731602 72068 3824812 10328 … |
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OpenBSD 175770 158789838 72486 3877048 10328 … |
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OpenBSD 176286 158853778 72994 3928988 10329 … |
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Linux 154382 157607418 51118 2724628 10326 … |
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Linux 154192 157596714 50928 2713924 10326 … |
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Linux 153990 157584882 50728 2705092 10326 … |
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``` |
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# About the results |
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A quick look will show that OpenBSD sent +42% OUT packets compared to |
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Linux and also +42% OUT bytes, meanwhile the OpenBSD/Linux IN bytes |
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ratio is nearly identical (100.02%). |
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Chart showing the IN and OUT packets of Linux and OpenBSD side by side |
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# Conclusion |
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I'm not sure what to conclude except that now, I'm sure there is |
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something here requiring investigation. |
