GNS3/Dynamips performance

ecceecce ■□□□□□□□□□ Posts: 2Registered Users ■□□□□□□□□□
in CCNP
Hi all,

I was going to do some experimenting on routing traffic different ways while benchmarking performance. I get very low performance when performance testing links in GNS3. iperf shows about 1,3 Mbps tops regardless of link type and generated traffic (tcp/udp, window size, parallell streams etc), even in a very simple topology with two routers. The host machine is a Retina i7 macbook pro with 16 GB RAM, the load on the machine is piratically zero. VirtualBox guests is a clean, tiny debian install. Tried on Windows 7 as well, no better luck there.

Anyone out there who care to share some iperf benchmarking results, in GNS3, so I have something to compare with?

Thanks.
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Comments

  • HeeroHeero Posts: 486Member
    That sounds about right. GNS3 is not high performance...which you can easily tell. However, it doesn't have to be high performance to do what it does.
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  • networker050184networker050184 Mod Posts: 11,962Mod Mod
    That really isn't a test you should be trying to do with GNS3 if you are looking for real world results.
    An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made.
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  • ecceecce ■□□□□□□□□□ Posts: 2Registered Users ■□□□□□□□□□
    Allright, thanks for your replies. I didn't expect superior performance, but I was surprised it was that low. I was hoping to make a point in class (work as academy instructor) about different routing protocols being clever when choosing a route.
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  • ampdeckampdeck ■■□□□□□□□□ Posts: 35Member ■■□□□□□□□□
    I find GNS3 to be running slow when using macbook, Im using Retina i7 16gb 2.7ghz.
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  • siggnationsiggnation Posts: 182Member
    Not sure if you have already tried, but ensure you click the Idle pc finder option when installing the router rom; it should calibrate to not use as much cpu compared to not having enabled that option.
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  • ampdeckampdeck ■■□□□□□□□□ Posts: 35Member ■■□□□□□□□□
    siggnation wrote: »
    Not sure if you have already tried, but ensure you click the Idle pc finder option when installing the router rom; it should calibrate to not use as much cpu compared to not having enabled that option.

    sorry I forgot to mention that I always include idlepc and idlemax to my GNS3 topologies, but still I find its very slow when using macbook compared to windows.
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  • HeeroHeero Posts: 486Member
    You won't get much, but you don't need it from GNS3 either. It is NOT a performance testing tool. It is basically a tool that gives you free access to fully emulated Cisco Routers at the explicit expense of performance.
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