Are you using SFE or CTF? Record uptime?

Post new topic   Reply to topic    DD-WRT Forum Index -> Broadcom SoC based Hardware

Shortcut Forwarding Engine Preference
SFE (please post uptime)
44%
 44%  [ 4 ]
CTF (please post uptime)
44%
 44%  [ 4 ]
Other
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
OFF
11%
 11%  [ 1 ]
Total Votes : 9

Author Message
Duxa
DD-WRT User


Joined: 16 Aug 2013
Posts: 191

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:17    Post subject: Are you using SFE or CTF? Record uptime? Reply with quote
TLDR: Please post if you use SFE or CTF and what your longest uptime is.

Hi all, just when I thought I was perfectly happy with my DDWRT setup, 4 days into uptime router locked up and rebooted (r6300v1 build from 6/10/22). Nothing relevant in the logs, I was outputting a window as I monitored the router, they just cut off as if power was cut, currently have serial hooked up and waiting out another 4 days to hopefully see at least some clue on serial output.

My suspicions are CTF (SFE is default and perhaps isnt changed by many, therefore less tested? (speculation)) Not that we could do much about fixing it if it was buggy.

Up until the issue happens router memory, cpu etc are all perfectly stable, no issues.

So Id like to know, what do you use, SFE or CTF? And whats your longest uptime with whatever you use? (basically stability of the router question).

My next test after I hopefully get some logs from serial is to try SFE and see if it still happens. I would like to use CTF over SFE because with saturated downstream (300 Megabit) SFE jumps CPU ~50%, while with CTF its like 1%. So I figure CTF would run the router cooler and give more resources to other things router needs to do.

But then again, at this point I have no clue what the issue is, just speculating. Would be good to know if many use CTF with long uptimes though.
Sponsor
raggw123
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 20 Apr 2022
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2022 14:10    Post subject: Using CTF Reply with quote
Had the same issue while using recent June builds. Cant remember which though. Reverted to r48971 build and everything works.

Didn't record any uptime before but my r7000 currently has 3 days into uptime using CTF+FA.
Alozaros
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 16 Nov 2015
Posts: 6408
Location: UK, London, just across the river..

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2022 14:32    Post subject: Reply with quote
If your router have enough resources to utilise the IPS provided speed..than you dont need any of those...
If your router doesn't have those resources...first rule is better buy new router..
-second rule, try to turn those on, but make sure they will not interfering with something else...and do not expect miracles...
-third rule read the first rule Laughing Laughing

_________________
Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55179 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55303 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55363 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
the-joker
DD-WRT Developer/Maintainer


Joined: 31 Jul 2021
Posts: 2146
Location: All over YOUR webs

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2022 15:17    Post subject: Reply with quote
Depends on your ISP speeds and weather you use IPV4 exclusively or not.

I cant give you uptimes, because I develop the UI for DD-WRT and am flashing test builds 2 to 4 times a day.

I use SFE my ISP speeds dont warrant CFT or CTF & FA and I dont use IPv6 have no use for it and my current ISP doesn't use IPv6 either and even if it did, I wouldn't jump on that bandwagon because ISP implementations are mostly nonsense and never really true IPv6 and they dont use equipment that fully supports IPv6 for most part because its an expense they cant justify when they can very well use bullshit implementations.

Also CTF or CFT & FA doesn't support IPv6 and it works differently than IPv4 which is what CTF and CTF & FA are made to accelerate NAT traffic. https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-nat-acceleration-495

_________________
Saving your retinas from the burn!🔥
DD-WRT Inspired themes for routers
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the phpBB Forum
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the SVN Trac & FTP site
Join in for a chat @ #style_it_themes_public:matrix.org or #style_it_themes:discord

DD-WRT UI Themes Bug Reporting and Discussion thread

Router: ANus RT-AC68U E1 (recognized as C1)
backroger
DD-WRT User


Joined: 07 Sep 2007
Posts: 73
Location: Philippines

PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2022 5:47    Post subject: Reply with quote
With SFE enabled and with the QoS enabled for bufferfloat, I have sporadic disconnection every 2 minutes with r49139 LAN/Wireless device...so I either turn off the SFE or QoS.

As for the speed...I did not notice any increase in enabling SFE.
the-joker
DD-WRT Developer/Maintainer


Joined: 31 Jul 2021
Posts: 2146
Location: All over YOUR webs

PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2022 8:33    Post subject: Re: Are you using SFE or CTF? Record uptime? Reply with quote
Duxa wrote:
My suspicions are CTF (SFE is default and perhaps isnt changed by many, therefore less tested? (speculation)) Not that we could do much about fixing it if it was buggy.

Not everyone will need CTF or even has CTF as an option, Atheros and friends dont have CTF, so you can actually base your speculation on a more grounded reality and not everyone has ISP speeds of 100 Mbps or more, more people have less than 100 Mbps download link, when you look at this from the viewpoint there are other countries in the world and not everyone lives in a city with Fiber Access and even then some Countries still below 300Mbps on hybrid fiber to cabinet/coax from cabinet to home networks or even worse still using ADSL.

CTF (a software optimization therefore runs in CPU) is IF your ISP provides you more than 200Mbps and your CPU/RAM are budget low performance, else there is no point for enabling it.

Enabling CTF has its own caveats;

CTF = Level 1 NAT acceleration and only supports Adaptive QoS.
CTF & FA have even more caveats.

_________________
Saving your retinas from the burn!🔥
DD-WRT Inspired themes for routers
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the phpBB Forum
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the SVN Trac & FTP site
Join in for a chat @ #style_it_themes_public:matrix.org or #style_it_themes:discord

DD-WRT UI Themes Bug Reporting and Discussion thread

Router: ANus RT-AC68U E1 (recognized as C1)
sideup66
DD-WRT User


Joined: 26 Nov 2016
Posts: 102

PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 16:00    Post subject: Reply with quote
Been using CTF,

To note, I believe CTF is basically broadcom's proprietary answer to SFE as qualcomm does not have it. My understanding to this point is that SFE is NOT compatible on bcom routers as CTF is the accepted means of acceleration. I did test initially and while noticing some improvement on SFE, CTF creates best outcomes.

When I had 200 meg internet from my ISP I used neither as I found the router quick enough running on standard routing and nothing more. Now at halfgig I have CTF enabled.

On my router I see typically uptimes of about a month before a crash happens, though I did recently go through a myriad of scripts I have running and make some adjustments to improve stability. Im hoping that time increases now.

Ideally, I would like to get rid of these old AC based routers as its old and the CPUs are quite old, especially given the speeds we are using today, however anything consumer related isnt ready for that yet in my opinion. Id like to start seeing multi gig lan across switches before upgrading my wireless radios and such too. What good is fast wifi speeds if I am choked by a gigabit line? There is no future proofing in that implimentation.
the-joker
DD-WRT Developer/Maintainer


Joined: 31 Jul 2021
Posts: 2146
Location: All over YOUR webs

PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 16:18    Post subject: Reply with quote
@sideup66

SFE is opensource, and CTF or CTF & FA are Broadcom exclusively and closed source, therefore cannot be ported to Atheros, like SFE was ported to other platforms. SFE cannot be compared to CTF or CTF & FA its a different implementation altogether.

CTF or CTF & FA will never be needed until ISP bandwidth is over like you put it 200 Mbps, for CTF or FA so pointless under it.

On the other hand if the hardware has a fast enough multi-core CPU and enough RAM, you wont need software/hardware acceleration for symmetric 1 Gbps WAN bandwidth Ipv4 side.

Anyway its clear so far none has the basic minimal understanding of either techs, the information is out there, you should all research it.

_________________
Saving your retinas from the burn!🔥
DD-WRT Inspired themes for routers
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the phpBB Forum
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the SVN Trac & FTP site
Join in for a chat @ #style_it_themes_public:matrix.org or #style_it_themes:discord

DD-WRT UI Themes Bug Reporting and Discussion thread

Router: ANus RT-AC68U E1 (recognized as C1)
PaulGo
DD-WRT User


Joined: 01 Dec 2021
Posts: 289
Location: Maryland, United States

PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 16:43    Post subject: Reply with quote
I found this background article on Flow Acceleration, SFE and Cut-Through Forwarding useful.

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware#Flow_Acceleration.2C_SFE_and_Cut-Through_Forwarding
dale_gribble39
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 11 Jun 2022
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 17:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
No mention of the Broadcom’s Runner network packet processor, specifically, but I have my reservations about application or presence in consumer-grade SoCs:

First draft of Flow Acceleration wiki entry

Broadcom BCM47xx @ OpenWRT wiki

Products Wireless Embedded Solutions and RF Components Wireless LAN Infrastructure BCM4707/4708/4709
(Courtesty of web.archive.org since the page 404s on Broadcom's current site)

Broadcom BCM4908 Router SoC Supports 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, and Up to 3.4 Gbps Combined WiFi Speeds

Broadcom Announces BCM4708x and BCM5301x SoCs for 802.11ac routers

Amplifying information for clarity would be helpful, but that is a long-winded wall of text that should be reduced for brevity and 3rd-party resources linked.

With respect to SFE, it was probably an exercise in keeping things Open Source, but may not have taken full advantage of the hardware (?).

_________________
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost

"I am one of the noticeable ones - notice me" - Dale Frances McKenzie Bozzio

<fact>code knows no gender</fact>

This is me, knowing I've ruffled your feathers, and not giving a ****
Some people are still hard-headed.

--------------------------------------
Mac Pro (Mid 2012) - Two 2.4GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5645 processors 64GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM OpenSUSE Leap 15.5
the-joker
DD-WRT Developer/Maintainer


Joined: 31 Jul 2021
Posts: 2146
Location: All over YOUR webs

PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 18:00    Post subject: Reply with quote
I would not go around the dd-wt wiki looking for ant relevant information on any of the techs involved. Its outdated, long winded and does not provide any meaningful source of accurate relevant information.

Plenty trustworthy sources exist elsewhere on the webs that are relevant accurate and well writen.

Qualcomm SFE code has in part being used for NHSS but again no one is looking in right places or though links posted.

_________________
Saving your retinas from the burn!🔥
DD-WRT Inspired themes for routers
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the phpBB Forum
DD-WRT Inspired themes for the SVN Trac & FTP site
Join in for a chat @ #style_it_themes_public:matrix.org or #style_it_themes:discord

DD-WRT UI Themes Bug Reporting and Discussion thread

Router: ANus RT-AC68U E1 (recognized as C1)
Display posts from previous:    Page 1 of 1
Post new topic   Reply to topic    DD-WRT Forum Index -> Broadcom SoC based Hardware All times are GMT

Navigation

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You can attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum