Network accelerator engine
What is the 'Network accelerator engine' component in Keenetic routers?
The network accelerator is designed to increase the routing speed on the device. The packet processing mechanism ensures maximum performance: maximum routing speeds and the ability to route many streams in parallel. It is enabled by default.
Note
The network accelerator does not replace the standard network address translation (NAT) function in the device but is a separate additional function.
Let's explain more about what is the 'Network accelerator engine' in Keenetic routers.
There are two types of accelerators: hardware and software.
HWNAT — hardware accelerator. Not present on all devices (usually missing on junior models and present on advanced ones).
The CPU has an additional hardware module (co-processor), designed directly for the packet processing of IP headers in Ethernet (IPoE) and PPPoE frames. Network packets to be translated are stacked directly in the device's RAM, and this hardware module is given the command: 'Replace the address X.X.X.X with Y.Y.Y.Y in all packets'. A separate hardware module performs address translation many times faster than the CPU. The co-processor also recalculates checksums on its own. Enabling HWNAT affects the data rate of L2TP over IPSec, IKEv2, IPsec and IPSec Xauth PSK VPN connections, which allows you to increase performance with any encryption type with little or no CPU load on the device.
Note
For more information about the hardware accelerator, see 'System performance settings: zRAM virtual swap file and HWNAT traffic accelerator'.
SWNAT — software accelerator. It is present on all models. Speeds up any connection (IPoE, PPPoE, PPTP, L2TP), but can load the router's CPU.
The two accelerators do not work simultaneously but alternately (for example, if HWNAT is on and works for IPoE, SWNAT is inactive and does not accelerate IPoE; if HWNAT is off, SWNAT is on). The software accelerator only works where HWNAT is missing or disabled.
If there are both accelerators on the device, selecting which one is currently running is done automatically if the 'ppe software' and 'ppe hardware' commands are present in the configuration file. The command 'no ppe' turns both accelerators off.
Important
We do not recommend turning off the network accelerator. It is designed to increase the routing speed of the device.
The hardware network accelerator can be switched off if the precise measurement of category and application traffic is required for the Traffic classification and IntelliQoS.
Connect to the web interface and ensure that the system component 'Network accelerator engine' is installed. You can do this on the 'General system settings' page under 'Updates and component options' by clicking on 'Component options'.
Starting from KeeneticOS 3.7 in the router's web interface on the 'General system settings' page in the 'Performance options' section, there is a switch to enable/disable the hardware accelerator.
