Solved Quick way to LiveUSB for iperf?

Espionage724 · Tuesday at 3:26 PM

My server is limiting Ethernet speed, and I'd like to try a quick iperf2/3 test from FreeBSD with its Ethernet driver. Can I boot a memstick image, drop to shell, and do something like pkg install iperf and run it client/server? Or some other way to have access to a FreeBSD environment booted from USB quick and easy? NomadBSD didn't boot.

nxjoseph · Tuesday at 3:46 PM

freebsd installation medias are mounted as read-only, so you can't perform much writes like using pkg. They use UFS and if you have enough RAM, you can move the whole system into RAM with write access.

I have had used this guide for a few times.

Using FreeBSD's re-root capability

EDIT: better just use # mount -u -o rw / as stated below.

Phishfry · Tuesday at 3:47 PM

The installer in LiveCD mode does not configure an ethernet interface.

So if you manually bring up the interface and run dhclient on it you can get net.

But isn't LiveCD memstick mounted RO?. You would have to deal with that too.
mount -o rw /

nxjoseph · Tuesday at 3:48 PM

Phishfry said:
mount -o rw /

~~That was not somehow possible when I was tried.~~

Alain De Vos · Tuesday at 3:50 PM

Explain somehow. For me this worked always. Which error ?

Phishfry · Tuesday at 3:50 PM

You would be better off just installing FreeBSD onto another memstick.
Call it your rescue stick.

nxjoseph · Tuesday at 3:52 PM

Alain De Vos said:
Explain somehow. For me this worked always. Which error ?

Just tried it on bhyve and it seems possible, i may be misremembered or there were some other problem.

loveydovey · Tuesday at 5:10 PM

Phishfry said:
mount -o rw /

Apparently, there's a shorter way to accomplish that: mount -u /

nxjoseph · Tuesday at 5:28 PM

loveydovey said:
Apparently, there's a shorter way to accomplish that: mount -u /

Context: mount(8)

Rich (BB code):

     -u      The -u flag indicates that the status of an already mounted file
             system should be changed.  Any of the options discussed above
             (the -o option) may be changed; also a file system can be changed
             from read-only to read-write or vice versa.  An attempt to change
             from read-write to read-only will fail if any files on the file
             system are currently open for writing unless the -f flag is also
             specified.  The set of options is determined by applying the
             options specified in the argument to -o and finally applying the
             -r or -w option.

loveydovey · Tuesday at 5:52 PM

nxjoseph said:

Context: mount(8)

Rich (BB code):

     -u      The -u flag indicates that the status of an already mounted file
             system should be changed.  Any of the options discussed above
             (the -o option) may be changed; also a file system can be changed
             from read-only to read-write or vice versa.  An attempt to change
             from read-write to read-only will fail if any files on the file
             system are currently open for writing unless the -f flag is also
             specified.  The set of options is determined by applying the
             options specified in the argument to -o and finally applying the
             -r or -w option.

I guess the default is rw, so it mounts rw with just -u. (If there's no fstab default as ro, I think).

Espionage724 · Wednesday at 4:08 AM

I ended up putting a different SSD in and doing a install

I get expected speeds 16.0-CURRENT:

Code:

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   113 MBytes   948 Mbits/sec    0    337 KBytes   
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   112 MBytes   940 Mbits/sec    0    337 KBytes   
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   112 MBytes   935 Mbits/sec    0    369 KBytes   
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    369 KBytes   
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   112 MBytes   937 Mbits/sec    0    369 KBytes   
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec   111 MBytes   932 Mbits/sec    0    369 KBytes   
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    369 KBytes   
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   112 MBytes   941 Mbits/sec    0    510 KBytes   
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   112 MBytes   943 Mbits/sec    0    510 KBytes   
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes   936 Mbits/sec    0    510 KBytes   
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.09 GBytes   939 Mbits/sec    0            sender
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.09 GBytes   937 Mbits/sec                  receiver

openSUSE Tumbleweed (6.18.2-1-default):

Code:

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  20.9 MBytes   175 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  19.8 MBytes   166 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  19.8 MBytes   166 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  19.8 MBytes   166 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  19.8 MBytes   166 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  19.9 MBytes   167 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  19.8 MBytes   166 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  19.9 MBytes   167 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  20.4 MBytes   171 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  19.5 MBytes   164 Mbits/sec    0    189 KBytes    
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   199 MBytes   167 Mbits/sec    0            sender
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec   199 MBytes   167 Mbits/sec                  receiver

I'm not sure what's going on on Linux (eth/ip tools and router show 1000 full dulex; I tried ethtool disabling all offload and highdma), it's a NetXtreme BCM5761e; I had about 30MB/s with a USB3 Ethernet adapter too on the same PC so something seems to be slow on Linux (maybe IRQ handling).