Boosting Socket Performance on Linux

Cop writes "The Sockets API lets you develop client and server applications that can communicate across a local network or across the world via the Internet. Like any API, you can use the Sockets API in ways that promote high performance -- or inhibit it. This article explores four ways to use the Sockets API to squeeze the greatest performance out your application and to tune the GNU/Linux® environment to achieve the best results."

Comments

Hello 1995

[AKAImBatman]

This reads like an article from the 90's. This being 2006 and all, I would hope that programmers know how to make effective use of TCP/IP sockets. I wonder if maybe they just yanked an article from 1995 and did a search/replace on s/Windows/GNU Linux/g.

Re:Hello 1995

[AKAImBatman]

One of the great things about computers is they allow different implementations of the same idea. Because of this, someone who knows how to tune the networking on one OS may not know how to on Linux.

Now if only the article actually covered something specific to Linux, I'd agree with you. About the most useful thing it does is tell you the location of the same parameters that you muck with on every other system in existence. This info has only been around for Linux for, oh, more than a decade. Pick up any book or tutorial on TCP/IP for the same info.

Do you also complain when the weather report comes on the local news, because you've seen a weather report before?

No more than I complain that I just ate dinner yesterday. But I do tend to get annoyed when TV Networks show reruns of my favorite TV shows in slots that they're supposed to be showing new episodes! (Star Trek: Enterprise was probably the worst at this. You never know when they were actually going to show something new. I didn't even consider it "one of my favorite TV Shows," and it was still annoying.)

Re:Be aware

[leonmergen]

Exactly... especially with things like these, it's usually best for the entire internet if you just stick with the defaults... they are defaults for a reason, it might not be the best for you, but it's most likely the best for the internet as a whole.

Reminds me of those people tweaking firefox settings to hammer all kind of webservers... sure, your browsing might be a slight bit faster, at the expense of the browsing of lots of other people...