Network Throughput Tuning: From Underperforming Gigabit to Line Rate
Throughput shortfalls can live in any layer — physical, driver, kernel stack or application — so measure each.
Find the bottleneck layer by layer
- Physical and driver: confirm negotiated speed with ethtool and check error counters with ethtool -S;
- Kernel parameters: raise rmem/wmem maxima, netdev_max_backlog and tcp_rmem, and use parallel streams to saturate the link in testing;
- Offload and CPU: enable GRO/GSO/TSO; if single-stream performance stalls, check whether one core is pegged and combine IRQ affinity with RPS.
Always test with iperf3 in parallel mode (-P 8) and watch per-core load — single-stream tests are limited by one core’s speed and hide the real capability.
Related products: RT28 industrial router, RK3588 Mini PC. Datasheets, firmware and SDKs are free at the Hugsun Documentation Center; for selection advice or volume pricing, talk to us.
