Raspberry pi 4 as broadband router
Posted on Fri 21 February 2020 in linux
A few years ago, I already considered using a Raspberry Pi as a broadband router. Back then, its first generation wasn't fast enough. This changed with the 4th generation of the Raspberry pi.
The test setup was similar to the setup I use previously:
- Two beefy laptops on the ends
- A VLAN-capable switch to connect everything
- The Raspberry pi "on a stick" to route traffic from one VLAN to the other
I was happy with the results. Ping latency was 0.834 ±0.075 ms.
$ iperf -c 192.168.23.231 -p 5001 -t 60 -i 5
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.23.231, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 289 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 4] local 192.168.10.20 port 60887 connected with 192.168.23.231 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 4] 0.0- 5.0 sec 510 MBytes 855 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 5.0-10.0 sec 514 MBytes 862 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 10.0-15.0 sec 513 MBytes 860 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 15.0-20.0 sec 512 MBytes 860 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 20.0-25.0 sec 513 MBytes 860 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 25.0-30.0 sec 514 MBytes 862 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 30.0-35.0 sec 516 MBytes 866 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 35.0-40.0 sec 515 MBytes 864 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 40.0-45.0 sec 514 MBytes 863 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 45.0-50.0 sec 506 MBytes 849 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 50.0-55.0 sec 498 MBytes 835 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 55.0-60.0 sec 506 MBytes 849 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 0.0-60.0 sec 5.99 GBytes 857 Mbits/sec
The bidirectional flows performed worse, as expected. But I had expected a bit better results:
$ iperf -c 192.168.23.231 -d -p 5001 -t 60 -i 5
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: -1.00 Byte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.23.231, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 273 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 5] local 192.168.10.20 port 60891 connected with 192.168.23.231 port 5001
[ 6] local 192.168.10.20 port 5001 connected with 192.168.23.231 port 36352
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 5] 0.0- 5.0 sec 82.2 MBytes 138 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 0.0- 5.0 sec 187 MBytes 313 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 5.0-10.0 sec 71.4 MBytes 120 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 5.0-10.0 sec 163 MBytes 273 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 10.0-15.0 sec 75.8 MBytes 127 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 10.0-15.0 sec 177 MBytes 296 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 15.0-20.0 sec 177 MBytes 297 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 15.0-20.0 sec 79.6 MBytes 134 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 20.0-25.0 sec 66.0 MBytes 111 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 20.0-25.0 sec 187 MBytes 313 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 25.0-30.0 sec 70.6 MBytes 118 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 25.0-30.0 sec 200 MBytes 335 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 30.0-35.0 sec 174 MBytes 291 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 30.0-35.0 sec 75.2 MBytes 126 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 35.0-40.0 sec 74.0 MBytes 124 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 35.0-40.0 sec 185 MBytes 310 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 40.0-45.0 sec 65.2 MBytes 109 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 40.0-45.0 sec 171 MBytes 287 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 45.0-50.0 sec 67.0 MBytes 112 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 45.0-50.0 sec 173 MBytes 291 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 50.0-55.0 sec 65.0 MBytes 109 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 50.0-55.0 sec 163 MBytes 273 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 55.0-60.0 sec 69.2 MBytes 116 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 0.0-60.0 sec 861 MBytes 120 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 55.0-60.0 sec 166 MBytes 279 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 0.0-60.0 sec 2.07 GBytes 297 Mbits/sec
[SUM] 0.0-60.0 sec 2.25 GBytes 323 Mbits/sec