New user's registration have been closed due to high spamming and low trafic on this forum. Please contact forum admins directly if you need an account. Thanks !

Very slow filetransfers from Mac to Bubba

Got problems with Bubba? Then this forum is for you.
Locked
vecka53
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Dec 2007, 05:53

Very slow filetransfers from Mac to Bubba

Post by vecka53 »

Hello!

I am starting a new topic because this has nothing to do with wireless LAN (as my earlier topic was about). My LAN-setup is as follows: D-Link DIR-100 Router with 3 connected PCs.
PC 1 = Fujitsu-Siemens Laptop P4 with Windows XP
PC 2 = iMac G5 iSight with OS X 10.4.11
PC 3 = Bubba Server with Linux (latest patch)

Filetransfers work great in the following situations:
PC1 <-> PC2
PC1 <-> PC3
PC2 <- PC3

But when i try to upload files to Bubba from iMac (PC2 -> PC3) it's very slow and upload stalls! Why is that? What is the problem with OS X and Linux, when OS X and Windows works very well and also Linux and Windows?

I have heard that OS X has problems with DNS lookups and reverse lookups when using SSH, especially when having a router which is relaying DNS and you have made DNS setting in OS X to the routers IP. When using SSH to connect to the Bubba from OS X it takes a long time, but if you change the DNS setting in OS X to a real server's IP (instead of the router's IP) connection to Bubba is instantanious! BUT it doesen't change the slow filetransfer-speed from OS X to Bubba!

I have no idea, why this problem excist! Is there anyone who has?

//Markus
Ubi
Posts: 1549
Joined: 17 Jul 2007, 09:01

Post by Ubi »

You did not mention which protocols you use during all your tests. This makes it difficult to comment
vecka53
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Dec 2007, 05:53

Post by vecka53 »

It doesn't matter which protocol I use...

I have tried;
- the filemanager in Web-interface, with domain name and IP
- scp command (SSH), whith domain name and IP
- mounted the samba share (smb://.....)

All above behave lika I described earlier!
Ubi
Posts: 1549
Joined: 17 Jul 2007, 09:01

Post by Ubi »

Ah. Good thing you also tried scp.

As this is protocol independent, it suggests a network issue.
can you see differences using ping or traceroute? (longer time to route, lost packages, slower ping, anything?). Please test at both ends and compare OSX <--> Bubba against PC <--> Bubba. Try using only the IP addresses so you're sure DNS is not involved.
vecka53
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Dec 2007, 05:53

Post by vecka53 »

OK!

First off I tested to ping the Bubba from my Windows PC and then from my Mac... same good results. Then I downloaded a software called "Wireshark" for both PCs (OS X and Windows). I started to log the network traffic when uploading files with the Web-filemanager first from OS X and then from Windows. I can't see any problem there either... but then I am no expert of network logging. I get "bad checksums" alot when using OS X, but that is normal with newer Gigabit-cards cause the network adapter calculates the checksum itself and Wireshark doesn't see it... (it is explained as that in the documentation, but what do I know?!) Except that the only differens is the transfer speed.

Well, I think I have to use my Windows Laptop when I need to upload files to my Bubba. I can mount my Mac HD and my Bubba in Windows and then copy/move files from Mac to Bubba! But I must say that I find it strange that that way is alot faster than NOT using Windows "in the middle"...
Ubi
Posts: 1549
Joined: 17 Jul 2007, 09:01

Post by Ubi »

Can this be related to TCP frame sizes or something that are different on the Gb interface? I personally have bad experience with mixing Gb and 100mb interfaces. The checksum errors sound bad, but to be honest I don't really understand their reasoning why this is not a problem. Is there a Gb interface on the windows machine? Can you force the Gb interface down to 100mb (the bubba interface is 100mb afaik).

I'm really not the world's greatest expert on TCP traffic debugging. All I can do here is make some suggestions in the way I would address such a problem myself. Please treat my comments as such.

Ubi
tor
Posts: 703
Joined: 06 Dec 2006, 12:24
Contact:

Post by tor »

Hi vecka53,

Your problems does indeed seem to be network related.

Could you get the output of a plain ifconfig cmd on bubba? Ie

Code: Select all

/sbin/ifconfig eth0
/Tor
Co-founder OpenProducts and Ex Excito Developer
vecka53
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Dec 2007, 05:53

Post by vecka53 »

Hi!

Here it is... my "/sbin/ifconfig eth0" result from Bubba:

eth0
Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:03:1C:FF:F3:22
inet addr:192.168.0.6 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING ALLMULTI MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:17944611 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:19417737 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:47107374 (44.9 MiB) TX bytes:3250319295 (3.0 GiB)
Interrupt:24 Base address:0xc000

//Markus
Ubi
Posts: 1549
Joined: 17 Jul 2007, 09:01

Post by Ubi »

After reading some usenet threads, I'm getting more and more convinced this is an issue of a difference between the Gb and the 100mb nics (in read/write buffer size??). My suggestion would be to clock down the interface to 100mb or temporarily put in a separate 100mb nic to compare.

Ubi
vecka53
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Dec 2007, 05:53

Post by vecka53 »

Hello again and thanks for all ideas!

The bad thing with iMac's is that you cant exchange the network card... But I have tested Wireshark again with my iMac and my Windows laptop, but this time I am using wireless network cards (that's the only way for me to test another network card with my iMac). My setup is now like this:

iMac<->WLAN
Laptop<->WLAN
WLAN<->Wireless_AP<->Router<->Bubba

Results: No errors in logs from Wireshark (especially no checksum errors). Windows Laptop great upload-speed, iMac very slow upload-speed...

The results are the same as with the wired connections except no checksum errors, that should rule out the Gigabit thing... (by the way, my gigabit NIC is in 100Mbit mode).

I think this is a OS X thing, but I don't know... 2 different network cards on OS X produce the same result; slow upload-speed to Bubba but downloads from Bubba works great! Using Windows XP is no problem!

I have also tested Windows 2000 using Virtual PC in OS X. And now hear this... it's faster than OS X. Windows runs in an emulated PC in OS X and the upload-speed is faster than only using OS X... Now I'm really confused!!!

//Markus
Ubi
Posts: 1549
Joined: 17 Jul 2007, 09:01

Post by Ubi »

Hi Vecka,

That was a good test. Your conclusions about the Nic are plausible indeed. This unfortunately does bring us back to square 1 =(

I found a few threads that report similar issues (such as http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/i ... 44950.html which also performed nearly all of your tests but found no solution. These guys here: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-196601.html solved the issue partially by swapping nics)

Further than that, I'm kinda out of options too...
Locked