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The main thing keeping me from using OpenBSD is that TCP transfers seem to take at least twice as long (testing both small and large files over plain HTTP) as L

The main thing keeping me from using OpenBSD is that TCP transfers seem to take at least twice as long (testing both small and large files over plain HTTP) as Linux. Has anyone else seen this?

switch007 8y ago
Twice as long! Have you found an existing bug report? Did you remove every difference in your testing except for the OS?
- bummer904 8y ago
  Yes. I'm just wondering if anyone has actually compared side by side and can either corroberate or contradict my findings.
  - anyfoo 8y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly many people would have noticed if OpenBSD's networking was generally half as fast as it's supposed to be. It must be something related to your specific configuration (not necessarily just software).
    - ggm 8y ago
      Actually I think very few OpenBSD people would notice if under load OpenBSD was significantly slower than Linux because very few OpenBSD people deploy in situation where they can do sustained parallel load tests. Linux has BBR. OpenBSD doesn't have BBR. The difference between BBR and Cubic or classic TCP is immense.
      - anyfoo 8y ago
        That's a good point. I read the comment such as that every transfer over TCP would be twice as slow, which would be pretty absurd, but the poster probably meant high load/bandwidth situations. It would not surprise me at all if OpenBSD fared way worse, there.
        ggm 8y ago
        It should be said that OpenBSD is a fine system, and this specific (BBR) difference would only show up if you had significantly large amounts of data to transfer in flows. I suspect normal use of OpenBSD as most people deploy it (which is not streaming data at high speed) wouldn't care. I have nothing against OpenBSD. If the developers don't want to implement BBR right now because of more important stuff on their backlog, thats fine with me.
    - ardy42 8y ago
      It's not exactly the same thing, but I've read posts where people are saying that pfSense (FreeBSD) can't route at gigabit speeds on a PCEngines APU2, while a similar Linux-based routing distribution can on the same hardware.
  - GalacticDomin8r 8y ago
    What findings? Where is the report and methodology?
notaplumber 8y ago
OpenBSD doesn't support sendfile(2), which might account for performance issues in some cases, but certainly not twice as long. Do you have a link to the bug report you undoubtedly filed when observing this?
- raverbashing 8y ago
  That's... surprising. Any reason why they wouldn't want to have that on OpenBSD?
opan 8y ago
I have heard from a guy on IRC that openbsd's biggest flaws are the network stack and file system options compared to freebsd and gnu/linux.

The main thing keeping me from using OpenBSD is that TCP transfers seem to take at least twice as long (testing both small and large files over plain HTTP) as Linux. Has anyone else seen this?

switch007 8y ago

Twice as long! Have you found an existing bug report? Did you remove every difference in your testing except for the OS?

bummer904 8y ago
Yes. I'm just wondering if anyone has actually compared side by side and can either corroberate or contradict my findings.
- anyfoo 8y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly many people would have noticed if OpenBSD's networking was generally half as fast as it's supposed to be. It must be something related to your specific configuration (not necessarily just software).
  - ggm 8y ago
    Actually I think very few OpenBSD people would notice if under load OpenBSD was significantly slower than Linux because very few OpenBSD people deploy in situation where they can do sustained parallel load tests. Linux has BBR. OpenBSD doesn't have BBR. The difference between BBR and Cubic or classic TCP is immense.
    - anyfoo 8y ago
      That's a good point. I read the comment such as that every transfer over TCP would be twice as slow, which would be pretty absurd, but the poster probably meant high load/bandwidth situations. It would not surprise me at all if OpenBSD fared way worse, there.
      - ggm 8y ago
        It should be said that OpenBSD is a fine system, and this specific (BBR) difference would only show up if you had significantly large amounts of data to transfer in flows. I suspect normal use of OpenBSD as most people deploy it (which is not streaming data at high speed) wouldn't care. I have nothing against OpenBSD. If the developers don't want to implement BBR right now because of more important stuff on their backlog, thats fine with me.
  - ardy42 8y ago
    It's not exactly the same thing, but I've read posts where people are saying that pfSense (FreeBSD) can't route at gigabit speeds on a PCEngines APU2, while a similar Linux-based routing distribution can on the same hardware.
- GalacticDomin8r 8y ago
  What findings? Where is the report and methodology?

notaplumber 8y ago

OpenBSD doesn't support sendfile(2), which might account for performance issues in some cases, but certainly not twice as long. Do you have a link to the bug report you undoubtedly filed when observing this?

raverbashing 8y ago
That's... surprising. Any reason why they wouldn't want to have that on OpenBSD?

opan 8y ago

I have heard from a guy on IRC that openbsd's biggest flaws are the network stack and file system options compared to freebsd and gnu/linux.