Performance Evaluation of Linux Bridge

This paper studies a unique network feature, Ethernet bridge, in the Linux kernel and conducts an extensive experiment to measure its performance as defined in RFC-2544. The result shows that Linux bridge yields satisfactory performance if the system occupancy is less than 56 % where its latency and throughput are comparable to Cisco Catalyst 2950 switch. The performance is considered acceptable until system occupancy reaches 85%. We also compared the performance between Linux bridge and Linux router, and the results are almost the same as measured by latency and throughput. The contributions of this study are summarized as follows: 1. With its open source, Linux bridge is like programmable switch for education and research. We are encouraged by the performance results of this study, and plan for more advanced research on Linux bridge in load balancing and high availability. 2. The performance result shows that Linux can be deployed as an effective network device if its occupancy is properly engineered for targeted applications. One example is network firewall where the Wide Area Network (WAN) link is usually than 10M. 3. Our experiment of bridge and router configuration can be used for classroom demo and lab exercise on data network education. The use of RFC-2544 serves as a useful guide to learn network benchmark testing and performance measurements. 3/29/2004 2 1