Intel® Ethernet 600 Series

Linux Performance Tuning Guide

ID Date Version Classification
861164 07/29/2025 Public

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​iPerf3

If iperf3 is used, multiple instances of the application are required to take advantage of the multi-threads, RSS, and hardware queues. Intel recommends running with the 1-2 application sessions for 10G connections. Each session should specify a unique TCP port value using the -p option.

  • To run uni-directional traffic from client to server:

    Server command example:

    iperf3 -s -p <port>

    Client command example:

    iperf3 -c <serverIP> -p <port>
  • To run bi-directional traffic from client to server (and vice versa):

    Server command example:

    iperf3 –s –p <port>

    Client command example:

    iperf3 -c <serverIP> -p <port> -P <IO_Streams> –-bidir
  • To start multiple instances (threads) of iperf3, the recommendation is to use a for-loop to map threads to TCP ports and run iperf3 in the background using & to create multiple processes in parallel.

    Server command example, start 4 threads:

    port=""; for i in {0..3}; do port=520$i; bash -c "iperf3 -s -p $port &"; done;

    Client command example, start 4 threads - Transmit test

    port=""; for i in {0..3}; do port=520$i; bash -c "iperf3 -c $serverIP -p $port &"; done;

    Client command example, start 4 threads - Receive test

    port=""; for i in {0..3}; do port=520$i; bash -c "iperf3 -R -c $serverIP -p $port &"; done;

For 10G connections, increase the for-loop to create up to 1-2 instances/threads.