Significant performance problem with modprobe

[Sven-Göran Bergh]

Hi Ed,


> > This is hitting me in  two areas, one is boot speed is slower than expected, 
>but 
>
> > more  importantly it's crucified my iptables performance.  Inexplicably 
>iptables  (1.4.10) 
>
> > calls modprobe something like 21 times each time it's run  (makes firewall 
>init
> > a multi-minute process)
> > 

How do you load your firewall? When I used the "iptables" call (1.4.10) to load 
my firewall
I noticed the same problem as you describe. I used iptables to load several 
"components"
(scripts with iptables calls) and it took several minutes. Adjusting the 
firewall init to
use iptables-restore instead reduced the number of calls to one! This does not 
solve the
underlying problem, but at least it cuts the load time from several minutes to a 
few seconds.

I was able to keep my previous structure just replacing my component scripts 
with
iptables-restore extracts that are cat together before calling iptables-restore.
Use itables-save on your firewall to see what the final result should look like.

As you stated, I would really like to see a fix in itables for this.

Brgds
/Sven