We now report on NetAuth's performance. All the experiments were run using a server--an AMD 4200+ (2.2 GHz) machine with 2GB RAM--and a client--an AMD 4600+ (2.2 GHz) machine with 1GB RAM. Both computers ran Linux kernel v2.6.17, used gigabit networking, and were connected by a crossover cable8. We measured elapse times (from the applications) in all cases.
We performed two types of performance tests to measure latency. First, we measured the overhead of netAuth authorization and compared it to unmodified Linux, for the cases of the bind, connect and connect-send-recv operations. Second, we measured latency for netAuth's per-user services. For the second part, there is no comparable Linux scenario and hence we report absolute times there.
