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MrMidiFlag for Netherlands

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Router performance

A friend of mine uses ClarkConnect as router/firewall/file-/http-/ftp-/mail server.

The routing performance is very poor. If he connects his Windows box directly to the internet, his download speeds are much better (100-200 KB/s) than when connected through the router (6 KB/s).

Services he has running are: Apache, CUPS, Cron, DHCP Server, DNS cache, Netwatch, Postfix, ProFTP, Samba, SSH, Snort, Suva and XInetd.

HW Specs: Chaintec 5HTM1 MB, AMD K6-II 300 @ 200 MHz, 192 MB RAM (30 used), 500 MB swap space (65 used), one 10 Mb NIC and one 10/100 Mb NIC.

His LAN is connected through a switch, and ifconfig shows no errors or collisions.

Any thoughts on how to improve the routing performance?
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jlevie

It would seem to me that there's more than enough hardware power to support a full cable or DSL connection if everything is working correctly. Running RedHat and an IPtables firewall + local mail server + DHCP server + DNS + Apache & Postgres on a system with less CPU power and memory I have no problem maxing out the download speed of a DSL line (1.5Bbps) for windows and linux clients inside of the firewall.

You might want to check to see if the inside NIC of the firewall is negotiating the correct link mode. If that's wrong and one side is using 100FDX while the other is using 100HDX you could see low data rates. Likewise I suggest checking the windows box for the same problem.

After that you probably need to look at what sort of CPU load is on the box and you might try diabling Snort, Netwatch, Suva and possibly Samba to see if they are part of the problem.
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ASKER

Thanks,

All NICs are set to full duplex, the detection LEDs on the switch confirm this. My friend has tried HD on all interfaces too, but it didn't make any difference. The load avarages are low (under 0.05) so I doubt the problem lies there. He has also tried to disable all services except for DNS and DHCP, but still no luck...

Here are some more details (don't know if they're useful :-) :

Linux version 2.4.18-27.7.x (bhcompile@stripples.devel.redhat.com) (gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat Linux 7.3 2.96-112)) #1 Fri Mar 14 06:58:54 EST 2003
iptables v1.2.5
Inet interface: rtl8029 (ne2k-pci driver)
LAN interface: rtl8139 (8139too driver)

If you need more info, just let me know.
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jlevie

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ASKER

Thanks, he swapped his NICS for Intel eepro100 ones and now the speeds are ok (actually he was already busy doing that at the time of your last comment, but I'll give you the points anyway :-)