[TriLUG] Linux Hardware Solution

[Thomas Gardner]

I think this version SheevaPlug actually does have hardware encryption
accelerator built in.  I decided I'd just get it set up first and see
if the performance was what I thought it should be or not.  If not then
I'd look into getting the hardware encryption working if it exists.

It was plenty good enough for what I need without even looking to see
if it had hardware encryption.  Even if I run full backups on all my
machines all at the same time, it all gets done in about an hour and
a half.  I guess I'm not backing up a lot.  I decided that wasn't worth
fixing.  I don't care if they do a little heavy lifting in the middle
of the night for an hour and a half.  The grunting doesn't wake me up.

The reference to ``really takes it out of a system'', had to do with
the bad old days when I had the same setup but was using slugs (NSLU2
from Linksys) instead of the SheevaPlugs.  Yikes.  Those little things
would do the whole encrypted FS thing, but they were really straining.
During a backup, it wasn't unusual for the receiving slug (all it's
doing is receiving the data via NFS, encrypting it and putting on disk)
to have it's load go up in the 10 range.  I could almost hear the poor
thing panting.  I may have the exact load number wrong, but I do know
I had to make sure that two systems didn't back up at the same time
or it would definitely crash one of those slugs.  At least two full
backups would.  They could handle a full backup from one system and
an incremental from another at the same time.  Back then, my biggest
full backup used to take something like five hours.  Without the
encryption, I'd bet it could have been done in about an hour or two.

L8r,
tg.

P.S.

Anyone want a slug or two?  I've got some laying around.  Most have
been de-underclocked already...  :-)

On 6/22/12, Bill Farrow <bill at arrowsreach.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 10:41 AM, Thomas Gardner <tmg at pobox.com> wrote:
>> - The partition I'm backing up to is encrypted (using the SheevaPlug,
>> not something on the drive).  That REALLY takes the wind out of the
>> sails of a machine, let me tell you.
>
> I did some work on an embedded product a while ago that had a hardware
> encryption accelerator built into the SoC.  It required a kernel
> driver and a patch to the OpenSSL library I think.  After enabling it,
> our CPU load dropped by 50%.
>
> So the moral of the story is to check what SoC or CPU supports h/w
> acceleration, and if the kernel already has support for this feature.
> Vendors are starting to catch on to the fact that if they get their
> drivers into the mainline kernel, they will sell more hardware.
>
> Bill
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