octane network speed

foetz

Member
Feb 19, 2019
93
47
18
hi everyone :)

nice to see some new entries on the new posts list so i figured i could add one more to that. a slightly odd one i might add :p

the oddity i came across for a while now is the network speed of my octane. it has 2 nics, the default one and a 3com gigabit card with the good old kernel hack. they both work fine with one exception: internet speed. no matter what i do i can't get more than about 1.8mb. that's way too low because my line has enough juice to fully saturate the onboard 100mbit one, which is connected to the router. the gigabit i use for lan only. they're configured as follows:
Code:
ef0: inet 192.168.1.9 netmask 0xffffff00
tg1: inet 192.168.7.9 netmask 0xffff8000

Destination      Gateway            Netmask    Flags    Refs     Use  Interface
default          192.168.1.1                   UGS         5    45838  ef0
127.0.0.1        127.0.0.1                     UH         35    11554  lo0
192.168          link#3             0xffff8000 UC          0        0  tg1
192.168.1        link#1             0xffffff00 UC          0        0  ef0
192.168.1.9      127.0.0.1                     UGHS        2     1013  lo0
224              link#1             0xf0000000 UCS         0        0  ef0
255.255.255.255  192.168.1.255                 UGHS        0        0  ef0
as mentioned already, they're both fine. with nfs for example i get the speed i expect and the built-in one maxes out with other stuff than the internet as well.
the strange thing is that once, and only that one time, i suddenly had full speed. no idea why and what caused it but after the next reboot it was back to slowmo again. of course i tried the usual things like different cables, different ports on the switch and so on but no dice. i tried different netmasks, turned ipfilter on and off and made sure the test download can actually deliver enough. but no matter what i did it didn't help.

so if anybody has any ideas ... anything would be most welcome.
 

Elf

Storybook / Retired, ex-staff
Feb 4, 2019
792
252
63
Mountain West (US)
Great to see you here! :)

Generally for network speed issues where you know the link supports more than you are getting, I would check for:
  • Duplex mismatch - make sure both sides of the link show full duplex; a managed switch would be needed here
  • Link errors - make sure error counters are not incrementing on both sides of the link, also handy to have a managed switch
  • TCP window scaling - make sure it is enabled (on IRIX, probably a systune?)
  • Maximum buffer & TCP window sizes - make sure they are set to at least the bandwidth delay product of the end to end link (also probably a systune?)
  • Selective ACK - Having it on helps deal with packet loss; hopefully IRIX supports this somewhere in systune? Not sure...
For speed, if you don't have a duplex mismatch or link errors and can achieve good speeds on the local LAN but not to higher latency destinations out on the Internet, then I would proceed to checking window scaling and buffer/window sizes. Sometimes you can get a box in the middle (e.g. FreeBSD / OpenBSD with PF) to proxy traffic (making sure TCP is tuned on the Internet facing proxy), if you don't want to touch the IRIX side.

(For the record I have never done TCP tuning on IRIX so I am not quite sure what the systune arguments are, however I have done it on many other OSes :) )
 

foetz

Member
Feb 19, 2019
93
47
18
Great to see you here! :)
thanks, i've been lurking for a while. it caught my attention because presenting a gcc8 is definitely an impressive start for a new site :D

Generally for network speed issues where you know the link supports more than you are getting, I would check for:
thanks for all of these. i'll check what i can without a managed switch.

if you don't want to touch the IRIX side.
oh i don't mind touching irix at all. on the contrary :p
 
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gijoe77

Member
Feb 18, 2019
71
38
18
I have a similar (I guess) issue with my tezro. I have it , my o2 and my win7 PC going to a switch, and the switch to my router.

The PC and o2 work full speed in every scenario - The Tezro gets full speed to my o2 and the internet, but it does ~100kb/s to my PC. I've replaced cables, moved ports, replaced the switch, etc to try to troubleshoot the issue - I just can't seem to figure out what the issue is.

If I need to move a file to my Tezro from my PC, I just copy it to my o2 first then move to the Tezro - it's so annoying.
 

stormy

Active member
Jun 23, 2019
133
55
28
I think I have the same issue on my Octane2, I usually get less than 1mb/s download from the internet. And if I download files bigger than 150mb they always fail at the 150mb mark. Using the stock motherboard ethernet port.
 

foetz

Member
Feb 19, 2019
93
47
18
some improvements here. well, kind of :p

due to some general network changes i got a different gateway which is in the same net as the gbit card. now i get as much speed as the on-board nic delivers. funny enough, i get that no matter whether i use the 100mbit net ip or the gbit net ip as proxy address. and also no matter which net i choose, i see both nics' lights blinking on the switch. so it's like the octane would always go through the 100mbit card, no matter what.

i can't shake the feeling that this is just a stupid routing issue but as you can see in this thread, i just didn't nail it yet.
 

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