Hi Brad, Speaking about scalability & pmacctd i would recommend to start from reading Q5 of the FAQS document: internal buffering (which i see it's not enabled in your configuration below) and, if not sufficient, resort to: device polling, PF_RING or a mmap() version of libpcap. Perhaps at those speeds, i would do some more rational data aggregation (no src_host,dst_host in a single plugin; but a split inbound/outbound configuration for example; at this propo just have a look to my previous email of few minutes ago).
Specs of your server seem just fine to my eyes but will leave comments to others who might have a similar setup. Cheers, Paolo On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 01:00:22PM +1000, Brad Hughes wrote: > Hi List, > > We are a small ISP considering using pmacct to account for customer > traffic on a small segment of our network. We have tested it and it > works fine for our needs. > > We noticed in testing that it uses a lot of CPU (to be expected). We are > wondering how scalable it is, and what kind of CPU power we would need > to capture data usage on a 1Gbps interface (all we need is ip_dst and > ip_src) into a MySQL database. The interface currently peaks at 50Mbps, > but will soon reach up to 200Mbps. > > The OS of the router is Debian Lenny. We have spec'd a new box for it, > and we are wondering if you think the hardware listed below will handle > a 200Mbps data stream - the data type varies, we're an ISP so its > anything and everything, including mail, web, torrent etc. > > We are thinking of going with 2 x quadcore xeon 2.50Ghz processors with > 4 Gb Ram. Enough? > > 2 x Intel Xeon 5420 2.50GHz 12Mb Cache FSB1333 Quad-Core Processor, > socket 771 w/Intel heatsink/fan cooler > 2 x ATP 2Gb ECC DDR2 RAM, PC-5300 667mhz Registered 240-pin DIMM > > The pmacct config we'll be using will be simple, something like: > > aggregate: src_host,dst_host > ! on this network > pcap_filter: src net 203.xx.xxx.xxx/22 > ! on this interface > interface: eth1 > > Thank you > > -- > > Kind regards, > > Brad Hughes _______________________________________________ pmacct-discussion mailing list http://www.pmacct.net/#mailinglists
