[Soekris] net5501 and Ralink RT2561S wireless performance

[Michael Sierchio]

Andrew Von Cid wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Recently I bought a net5501 to use as a firewall and a wireless access
> point.  For wireless I'm using a Ralink RT2561S minipci card.  The box
> is running FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE.
> 
> My setup is as follows:
>  * vr0 - Internet uplink
>  * vr1 - LAN
>  * ral0 - Wireless, mode 11g, channel 1, WPA 
> 
> I'm experiencing really poor performance under heavy wireless load.  The
> interrupts seem to use around 95% of the cpu and it affects the LAN
> performance considerably (voip gets choppy, slow ssh, etc.) 

> Is there anything I can do to improve the wireless performance (as in
> the cpu load)?  Would changing the wireless card to a minipci Atheros
> help?  
> 
> I'd be very grateful for any suggestions.

I'd ask Jim Thompson of Netgate re: wireless adapter issues --
jim at netgate.com

You might consider using a traffic shaper for VoIP and interactive
traffic.  Using dummynet with GRED on the wireless interface (the
one subject to congestion/interference) and giving greater weight
to traffic smaller than the MTU size might help.

I don't know if there's a FreeBSD port of any of the split-TCP
proxies...  Sorry, it's late on the West Coast, and I've been
drinking sake and watching Zatoichi movies.

- Michael