I'm developing a system for a customer who has specified in the system requirements that the NAGLE algorithm must be disabled. I have successfully done this in my kernel, or at least I believe I have but I am not sure how to prove this to my customer.

I could show them the kernel configuration file that shows that I have selected the option to disable NAGLE but is there a way I can actually prove that this has done what it should have done? Is there a quick test I can run over a network to prove that the NAGLE algorithm has been disabled?

And can anyone tell me what disabling the NAGLE algorithm actually does? I understand it optimises the number of packets on the network at any one time. But when I disable it what else am I affecting? What other aspects of the kernel configuration are affected by my disabling of NAGLE. Any information at all, any level of detail, greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

found a thread about it:

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...06.3/0116.html

and...

Nagle's rule is a heuristic to avoid sending particularly small IP packets, also called tinygrams. Tinygrams are usually created by interactive networking tools that transmit
single keystrokes, such as telnet or rsh. Tinygrams can become particularly wasteful on low-bandwidth links like SLIP. The Nagle algorithm attempts to avoid them by
holding back transmission of TCP data briefly under some circumstances. You might only want to disable Nagle's algorithm if you have severe problems with packets
getting dropped.