Probably more related to "real world" runs than benchmarking, but ramping up connection tracking table space is rarely a good idea - unless you turn of stateful

Probably more related to "real world" runs than benchmarking, but ramping up connection tracking table space is rarely a good idea - unless you turn of stateful iptables rules entirely (which for a benchmark like this should be fine). The other (possible) option for real world use is to tweak nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_time_wait and nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_established to flush done connections from connection tracking quicker. Have had some good use with this - read more here: http://blog.engineyard.com/2012/linux-scalability http://blog.engineyard.com/2012/linux-scalability