Increasing ip_conntrack_max

[Ben Tyler]

I've been looking for information regarding increasing
the value of "/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_conntrack_max" on
my RHEL3 box running iptables/ip_masq.  Any pointers
would be greatly appreciated.

I see about 200 lines of "kernel: ip_conntrack: table
full, dropping packet." in /var/log/messages each day.

The machine has 1GB of ram and performs no other
functions.  It's current memory usage (less
buffers/cache) is about 150MB.

The current value of ip_conntrack_max which was set by
the RHEL installer is 65016.  Can I increase this
value?  If so how much?

Is there a better way to monitor the current number of
connections being tracked then `cat
/proc/net/ip_conntrack | wc -l` which takes about 30
seconds with this many connections.

Are there any other parameters I can increase to help
the performance of a system that only does ip_masq?

Thanks,
Ben


	
		
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