Hi,

Consider the following setup :

tlp0 : 192.168.1.1
tlp1: 192.168.2.1
net.inet.ip.forwarding=1

WorkstationA : 192.168.1.2
WorkstationB : 192.168.2.2


*********************************************************************
I) FTP Transfer from one workstation to the other.

*********************************************************************

WorkstationA --> switch --> Qube2 --> WorkstationB (tlp0 --> tlp1)
~ 1.7 MB/s

WorkstationB --> Qube2 --> switch --> WorkstationA (tlp1 --> tlp0)
~ 3.1 MB/s


*********************************************************************
II) FTP Transfer from one workstation to the other.
with swapped cables/config between tlp0 and tlp1
*********************************************************************

WorkstationA --> switch --> Qube2 --> WorkstationB (tlp1 --> tlp0)
~ 1.7 MB/s

WorkstationB --> Qube2 --> switch --> WorkstationA (tlp0 --> tlp1)
~ 3.1 MB/s


*********************************************************************
III) FTP Transfer from one workstation to the other.
both computers on the same switch, network & subnet
*********************************************************************

WorkstationA --> switch --> WorkstationB
~ 11 MB/s

WorkstationB --> switch --> WorkstationA
~ 10.6 MB/s

*********************************************************************



I have a couple questions related to these numbers;

1) What is causing the rather slow speeds in I and II? The Qube2's CPU 
remains 100% idle while it forwards. In linux (debian 3.1 with kernel 
2.4.28 i think) it makes the Qube2 roughly 80% idle and the speeds get 
bumped to a little bit more than 6 MB/s.

2) Is this a problem specific to the built-in 21143 chips?

3) Why is one way slower than the other? Even if I swap the 
ifconfig.tlp0 and ifconfig.tlp1, and swap the network cables, the same 
thing happens, so tlp0 is not any faster than tlp1 or whatever. The NICs 
on the workstations are very capable and they're not the bottleneck here 
  (Sun Gem in WorkstationA, 3c905C in WorkstationB). As you can see they 
can pretty much saturate 100baseTX..


4) Is there any cobalt specific tweaking to improve network performance?

5) What are good, known to work PCI NICs for the Qube2? I tried a 3Com 
3c905C and I only get a couple KB/s with it.. Also, anyone tried dual 
ports cards? I would ask for quad ports too, but I doubt those would 
actually fit in there.



Thanks

Francis