Bench marking WIFI

Doing Wifi on Event with the NEK leads us to the conclusion the accesspoints running FreeBSD do crash.

purpose

During the Event the focus is uptime. There limited time to collect crashdumps, data. To get more data to improve software and select hardware testing is needed.

The purpose of this benchmark is to getting accesspoints to the point that they crash and collect data:

  • to improve FreeBSD as an accespoint (feedback to developers)
  • select hardware that works best with FreeBSD.
  • other software may tested but are seen as sidepaths.

Setup

Hardware

  • 6x Alix + atheros card
  • 1x Wrap + atheros card
  • 4x NET4826
  • i368 machine (2G mem, p4, 200G disk, 3xlan interface)
  • switch

Software

  • FreeBSD current
  • NanoBSD
  • dbs (ports/benchmark/dbs)

Layout

Master ----nic2----< ap-brigde
 |                      |
nic1                    wlan0
 |                      |
 |                      ^
 |---- wlan client 1 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 2 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 3 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 4 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 5 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 6 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 7 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 8 -->|
 |                      | 
 |---- wlan client 9 -->|
 
(switched)             (wlan) 
(admin net)            (test net)

Installation / Configuration

  • Install dbs
  • Build
  • Setup NTP (server and clients
  • Admin scripts

Running Benchmarks

Finding a proper way to collect data is a learning curve

Report checklist

Succesfull Crashes