duel network cards to increase performence

Hi,

sorry if this is a dumb question. But I have a samba server and
performence is ok, but I would like to increase it(like everyone else I
guess...).

I think the biggest thing slowing me down is the network(as the server
is a p4, with 1 gig ram).

I am not sure if this will work, but if i put multiple network cards
into the box and connect it to a switch, could I somehow get load
balancing to inprove performence? or something like that(maybe assign a
different hostname for each interface and have a set of users connect to
the same server using different nics?

We have about 20 users using this server and most cpu usage I have ever
seen with it is 5%. I consider this a waste, Do you know anything I can
do to get around this bottle neck for this file server?

Gautam Bakshi wrote:
> Hi,
>
> sorry if this is a dumb question. But I have a samba server and
> performence is ok, but I would like to increase it(like everyone else I
> guess...).
>
> I think the biggest thing slowing me down is the network(as the server
> is a p4, with 1 gig ram).
>
> I am not sure if this will work, but if i put multiple network cards
> into the box and connect it to a switch, could I somehow get load
> balancing to inprove performence? or something like that(maybe assign a
> different hostname for each interface and have a set of users connect to
> the same server using different nics?
>
> We have about 20 users using this server and most cpu usage I have ever
> seen with it is 5%. I consider this a waste, Do you know anything I can
> do to get around this bottle neck for this file server?
>

If the switches go to a common backbone, you'll win nothing.

--

Tauno Voipio
tauno voipio (at) iki fi

In comp.os.linux.networking Gautam Bakshi <gautam.bakshi@gmail.com>:
> Hi,

> sorry if this is a dumb question. But I have a samba server and
> performence is ok, but I would like to increase it(like everyone else I
> guess...).

> I think the biggest thing slowing me down is the network(as the server
> is a p4, with 1 gig ram).

Why think? Run 'sar' for some days and check where the
"bottleneck" if any is, perhaps disks aren't fast enough?

As you didn't mentioned anything about your network setup, it's
hard to suggest anything meaning full. Perhaps putting a single
1GB NIC in the server would improve things. Sure you can
load-balance through NICs. Check the kernel sources for
Documentation/networking/bonding.txt (or so) it has complete
info.

[..]

> We have about 20 users using this server and most cpu usage I have ever
> seen with it is 5%. I consider this a waste, Do you know anything I can
> do to get around this bottle neck for this file server?

Usually a system should be fast enough until users complain. A
file-server usually doesn't need much CPU power, disks/setup +
network/hba are what matters.

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 230: Lusers learning curve appears to be fractal

In article <slrnd0afkg.521.itsbruce@knossos.bruce>,
Bruce Richardson <itsbruce@uklinux.net> wrote:
>Gautam Bakshi <gautam.bakshi@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am not sure if this will work, but if i put multiple network cards
>> into the box and connect it to a switch, could I somehow get load
>> balancing to inprove performence?
>
>You would need to use the bonding module, which allows you to aggregate
>multiple interfaces into one. Even then, you would only achieve
>redundancy (and thus greater reliability) unless you had a smart switch
>that understands port aggregation.
>
>
>
>--
>Bruce
>
>Explota!: miles de lemmings no pueden estar equivocados.


The server-grade NIC cards advertise bonding as a feature. I stuggest
you look at the specs for the Intel server cards and see what bonding
standards they support. Your switch may not support those standards.

I expect you've already done some measurements and satisfied yourself
that the 100mb wire is your bottleneck.




--

a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m

Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

Al Dykes wrote:
> In article <slrnd0afkg.521.itsbruce@knossos.bruce>,
> Bruce Richardson <itsbruce@uklinux.net> wrote:
>
>>Gautam Bakshi <gautam.bakshi@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I am not sure if this will work, but if i put multiple network cards
>>>into the box and connect it to a switch, could I somehow get load
>>>balancing to inprove performence?
>>
>>You would need to use the bonding module, which allows you to aggregate
>>multiple interfaces into one. Even then, you would only achieve
>>redundancy (and thus greater reliability) unless you had a smart switch
>>that understands port aggregation.
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>Bruce
>>
>>Explota!: miles de lemmings no pueden estar equivocados.
>
>
>
> The server-grade NIC cards advertise bonding as a feature. I stuggest
> you look at the specs for the Intel server cards and see what bonding
> standards they support. Your switch may not support those standards.
>
> I expect you've already done some measurements and satisfied yourself
> that the 100mb wire is your bottleneck.
>
>
>
>
Hi Everyone, Thanks for the replies.

I'm sorry, I should have given more information.

Our old server was a p2 333mhz. It worked fine, but after so many years
the drive died and we just figured to replace the whole machine since
its been with us for far to many years.

When people were using the file server at that time, the cpu usage(via
top) was like 60% in use.

I'm just trying to see if there's anything I can do to push performence,
I also do some consulting for other companies and wanted to see if I
somehow I can do something to increase network performence for them on
my servers. (this is why I don't want to change anything other then
hardware on the server itself, configuration, or the switch connecting
to the server).

Any more advice would be helpful, but i will look into bonding right now
also.

thanks :-)

Gautam Bakshi <gautam.bakshi@gmail.com> said:
>sorry if this is a dumb question. But I have a samba server and
>performence is ok, but I would like to increase it(like everyone else I
>guess...).
>
>I think the biggest thing slowing me down is the network(as the server
>is a p4, with 1 gig ram).

"think"? Have you measured? Measure before continuing - otherwise
you'll be wasting your time.

Also, think of the overall network set-up at your location: if you
increase the file server bandwidth, are you creating a bottleneck
at some other (perhaps more critical) place in your network?

So, f.ex. if you have your server network connected to one switch,
then a 100Mbit/s trunk to another switch, and your office network
connected to that other switch, then resolving the (non-confirmed)
bandwidth bottleneck from the server to the closest switch will
just make the trunk even more congested than it currently is.

>I am not sure if this will work, but if i put multiple network cards
>into the box and connect it to a switch, could I somehow get load
>balancing to inprove performence?

Yes, bonding, as others have already told. But preferably a faster
single interface (if you're running at 100Mbit/s, replace it with
a 1Gbit/s interface), _if_ your network architecture can sustain
the increased load.

Then, if your server already has one 1Gbit/s NIC, adding another might
not help - depending on the bus of the server: 1Gbit/s is already
fairly close to the bandwidth of the regular (32-bit, 33MHz) PCI
bus. Depending on your server motherboard, there may or may not be
more than one bus, and there may be faster buses.

>or something like that(maybe assign a different hostname for each
>interface and have a set of users connect to the same server using
>different nics?

Doable - however try not to create unnecessary confusion for your
users. And still, this only works if your overall network can sustain
the increased load.
--
Wolf a.k.a. Juha Laiho Espoo, Finland
(GC 3.0) GIT d- s+: a C++ ULSH++++$ P++@ L+++ E- W+$@ N++ !K w !O !M V
PS(+) PE Y+ PGP(+) t- 5 !X R !tv b+ !DI D G e+ h---- r+++ y++++
"...cancel my subscription to the resurrection!" (Jim Morrison)