Topic: Internet performance drops by 90% after sme 6.5 box install

[mhiggins]

Current environment is 100mbps up & down fiber (FTTH) connection (nice hu) & 4 of us share this by pluging into a switch that plugs into the fiber. However when we put the sme 6.5 server between the switch & the fiber connection all internet services seem to grind to a turtles pace, ftp, web, ssh. To give you an indication a download that normally take 2 seconds when pluged direct to the fiber takes 15 minutes when we put the sme box in place, remove it & were back to a 2 second download. This box has been traveling very well with sme 5.5 on an adsl 3mbps connection, only difference is the network card on the web side was upgraded from a 10mbps to 100mbps card, have tested this card in knoppix & seem to be working fine. Have a box of exactly the same spec running at home on SME 6.1 but the connection is 50mbps up & down over vdsl, this environment shows no speed difference between plugging straight in to the web or routing through the sme server. Would really appreciate any tips, ideas or thoughts, or even a best guess.

[alaskamatt]

You may want to make sure that your dns entries are correct, that the gateway has been setup properly at both the client and the server end, and that the problem can also be seen at the SME box.  Try using lynx to ensure that the internet connection is also problematic on the SME outgoing side.

[boss_hog]

Hi mhiggins,
it might be worth checking what kind of throughput you are actually getting on the new NIC you installed. Maybe hook up the wan side to a local machine and try some file tranfers to see what speed you can get.

My experiences with linux in general has been that some network cards work good, but not up to the rated speed that you would expect. If you have the ability to swap out the WAN side NIC, with one that has a different chipset, and test again to see if it is harware(driver) or software(SME).
Just tossing some thoughts out, hope one helps.
Joe

[jjanczuk]

Hi!

I've had a similar problem (Not with an SME Server, but with a FC1 box), and all the trouble gone when I "fixed" (With mii-tool) the Nic's Speed and Half/Full duplex setting according to those of the switch port.
Although, I hav not a SME box at hand now to test the command..... (But, if it worked in FC1....)


Hope this helps.....
Regards.
Juan.

[mhiggins]

Ok,

Firstly I would like to thank every one who replied, i have been o/s the last couple of weeks so i haven't had a chance to post the results;

DNS settings are cool & gateway is set up right. The problem only exist on the lan side of the box, the SME box has its full 100mbps connection to the web.

File transfers run sweat as between lan clients & the box, full 100mbps

Tried to find a card with a different chipset but then i remembered i deal i did with someone a year or so ago to buy 20 100mb realteks nics, so i have basically realtek or realtek, never had an issue with them in SME or any other linux. Anyway Joe's suggestion to do the internal file transfer seems to confirm the lan side nic is operating properly & both nics tested ok using Knoppix.

Juan idea seems plausible, but i had issues getting the mii-tool to work.

I reinstalled 6.5 but ended up with the exact same problem?

I installed 6.0.1 & it's working fine. Just pulled 16g threw it so i guess that a big enough test.

Anyway once again thank you for your advice & ideas it is much appreciated

[raem]

mhiggins

> I reinstalled 6.5 but ended up with the exact same problem?
> I installed 6.0.1 & it's working fine. Just pulled 16g threw it so i guess that a big enough test.

How about adding a bug to the contribs.org bug tracker for 6.5 that is.

[mhiggins]

good idea ray have just finished doing it