WireGuard + Linux Networking Stack Stress Test

This is a benchmark of the WireGuard secure VPN tunnel and Linux networking stack stress test. The test runs on the local host but does require root permissions to run. The way it works is it creates three namespaces. ns0 has a loopback device. ns1 and ns2 each have wireguard devices. Those two wireguard devices send traffic through the loopback device of ns0. The end result of this is that tests wind up testing encryption and decryption at the same time -- a pretty CPU and scheduler-heavy workflow.

To run this test with the Phoronix Test Suite, the basic command is: phoronix-test-suite benchmark system/wireguard.

Performance Metrics

WireGuard + Linux Networking Stack Stress Test

OpenBenchmarking.org metrics for this test profile configuration based on 1,358 public results since 20 April 2020 with the latest data as of 29 November 2023.

Below is an overview of the generalized performance for components where there is sufficient statistically significant data based upon user-uploaded results. It is important to keep in mind particularly in the Linux/open-source space there can be vastly different OS configurations, with this overview intended to offer just general guidance as to the performance expectations.

Based on OpenBenchmarking.org data, the selected test / test configuration (WireGuard + Linux Networking Stack Stress Test) has an average run-time of 18 minutes. By default this test profile is set to run at least 3 times but may increase if the standard deviation exceeds pre-defined defaults or other calculations deem additional runs necessary for greater statistical accuracy of the result.

Based on public OpenBenchmarking.org results, the selected test / test configuration has an average standard deviation of 0.9%.

Does It Scale Well With Increasing Cores?

No, based on the automated analysis of the collected public benchmark data, this test / test settings does not generally scale well with increasing CPU core counts. Data based on publicly available results for this test / test settings, separated by vendor, result divided by the reference CPU clock speed, grouped by matching physical CPU core count, and normalized against the smallest core count tested from each vendor for each CPU having a sufficient number of test samples and statistically significant data.

Tested CPU Architectures

This benchmark has been successfully tested on the below mentioned architectures. The CPU architectures listed is where successful OpenBenchmarking.org result uploads occurred, namely for helping to determine if a given test is compatible with various alternative CPU architectures.

Recent Test Results

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