Tuning igb and e1000e drivers for a 1GbE appliance -- any point?

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Cheddoleum

Member
Feb 19, 2014
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Just looking at the tunable options to the Intel network modules for Linux, and wondering -- very belatedly -- if there's any value in tweaking them for a dedicated network appliance.

My generic, slightly overpowered for the job, Linux-based router/network appliance on a consumer-grade 1Gig fiber connection uses a mix of Intel NICs with the e1000e and igb drivers. My wife and I both telecommute and have always-on VPN connections at least two or more sites, in addition to ordinary household internet uses like the netflix and some light bittorrenting.

Any point in tweaking the module and system networking parameters or are the defaults good enough? I've heard there's some benefit to increasing the size of the transmit and receive buffers, for example. Any practical suggestions appreciated.
 

Cheddoleum

Member
Feb 19, 2014
103
23
18
And while I'm on the subject, one of the built-in NICs is an 82579LM, and this port also used by the mobo for MEBx/AMT, i.e. it's the notorious Intel Management Engine port. This NIC was, for no reason that I can detect, occasionally dropping to 10Mbps and staying there: only reinitializing it would bring it back to 1000Mbps, unplugging the media and replugging it would not do it.

In response I've disabled ASPM in the BIOS and confirmed that MEBx is not enabled, uses a non-default password and reads as unprovisioned from the OS level. So far the problem has not recurred, which doesn't really prove anything. Is that good enough or should I just stop using this port entirely, fill it in with epoxy and pretend it never existed?
 
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