topic Re: Network speed in Operating System - Linux

Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 03:07:17 GMT

Hi,

I have an Alphastation 500/400 running redhat 7.2. I added installed it as WORKSTATION but added some tcp servers like telnet.
When I do an ftp I get a speed of about 40K/sec while it should be 1M/sec. Also telnet is very slow. So I guess something is wrong with my network settings.

1) How can I see the active duplex mode setting and active speed setting WITHOUT installing extra soft ?
2) How can I force a certain setting ?

I already tried (invain) with the console variables.

Wim

Re: Network speed

Bojan Nemec — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:14:49 GMT

Wim,

Check, if you have the mii-tool instaled (I never try it on an Alpha machine). Than you can simply run (as root):

# mii-tool -?
(something like LANCP> HELP)
# mii-tool
(something like LANCP> SHOW DEVICE)
# mii-tool -v
(something like LANCP> SHOW DEVICE /FULL)
# mii-tool -F media interface
(something like LANCP> SET DEVICE interface)

See man mii-tool
(For others: The LANCP is a VMS tool for setting network devices)

Bojan

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:19:00 GMT

Good Bojan. But mii* isn't available.
Isn't there another way ? I could install it but my disk is very small. So, if possible another solution.

Wim

Re: Network speed

Bojan Nemec — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:31:50 GMT

Wim,

Check another time it should be /sbin/mii-tool.

If cant find it there is a link (I think you use Debian):

http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/net-tools

Bojan

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:55:56 GMT

Bojan,

No it is Redhat this time. I don't know what I did wrong but I have mii-tool. But the bad news is that it always says "no MII interfaces found". My alpha is from 1997.

Wim

Re: Network speed

Bojan Nemec — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:58:42 GMT

Wim,

There is another tool which can be used: ethtool .Unfortunately I dont know much abbout it and the man page is very vague. You can check if you have it (it should be /usr/sbin/ethtool)

Bojan

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 06:03:58 GMT

Not found. I only have a file ethtool.ph.

Wim

Re: Network speed

Bojan Nemec — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 06:47:41 GMT

Wim,

Sorry for Debian (I remember one yours old thread and have not read well the current thread).

What kind of ethernet card you have? How it is seen from IP (try ifconfig to display all known interfaces). It should be eth0 but you never know.

You can check the /etc/modules.conf if there are some special settings for the module (driver).

Bojan

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 07:18:12 GMT

Bojan,

It is a tulip (but VMS tells me de435).
sysconfig results in :

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:F8:25:88:DF
inet addr:128.231.158.102 Bcast:128.231.159.255 Mask:255.255.240.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:104513 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:59707 errors:3427 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:3427
collisions:2203 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:10165923 (9.6 Mb) TX bytes:36320582 (34.6 Mb)
Interrupt:29 Base address:0x9000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:422 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:422 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:34928 (34.1 Kb) TX bytes:34928 (34.1 Kb)

Re: Network speed

Bojan Nemec — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 07:30:30 GMT

Wim,

Check also which module is loaded with lsmod (probably is a de4x5).

That driver has setup capabilities. From the /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/de4x5.c:

Command line arguments are now allowed, similar to passing arguments
through LILO. This will allow a per adapter board set up of full duplex
and media. The only lexical constraints are: the board name (dev->name)
appears in the list before its parameters. The list of parameters ends
either at the end of the parameter list or with another board name. The
following parameters are allowed:

fdx for full duplex
autosense to set the media/speed; with the following
sub-parameters:
TP, TP_NW, BNC, AUI, BNC_AUI, 100Mb, 10Mb, AUTO

Case sensitivity is important for the sub-parameters. They *must* be
upper case. Examples:

insmod de4x5 args='eth1:fdx autosense=BNC eth0:autosense=100Mb'.

For a compiled in driver, at or above line 548, place e.g.
#define DE4X5_PARM "eth0:fdx autosense=AUI eth2:autosense=TP"

Yes, I know full duplex isn't permissible on BNC or AUI; they're just examples. By default, full duplex is turned off and AUTO is the default
autosense setting. In reality, I expect only the full duplex option to
be used. Note the use of single quotes in the two examples above and the
lack of commas to separate items. ALSO, you must get the requested media
correct in relation to what the adapter SROM says it has. There's no way
to determine this in advance other than by trial and error and common
sense, e.g. call a BNC connectored port 'BNC', not '10Mb'.

And try:
# mii-tool eth0

Bojan

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 07:56:23 GMT

Bojan,

lsmod returns tulip.

mii-tool eth0

results in

SIOCGMIIPHY on 'eth0' failed: No such device

How do I pass the argument to the insmod done during the boot ?

Wim

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:19:21 GMT

Found it. This explains it all :
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=modules.conf+tulip+options&hl=nl&lr=&selm=syzo3rx9mv.fsf%40tiktok.cygnus.com&rnum=1

but all the others that say that you can add debug=x do NOT work (in my case).

Now I still have frame errors but I have a normal speed.

Thx Bojan.

Wim

Re: Network speed

Bojan Nemec — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 11:02:27 GMT

Wim,
Tulip driver documentation is (if you have kernel sources) in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/DocBook/ .

There is a link:

http://www.scyld.com/tulip.html

Bojan

Re: Network speed

Ross Minkov — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 11:51:28 GMT

Can you set it at the SRM prompt?

Something like this:

P00>>> show dev
(say you have ewa0; then do something like)
P00>>> set ewa0_mode ?
this should list all avail. modes
say you want FastFD -- do:
P00>>> set ewa0_mode FastFD

Regards,
Ross

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 02:42:09 GMT

Ross,

The settings on SRM are simply ignored. So, not working.

Wim

Re: Network speed

Ross Minkov — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 07:13:46 GMT

How can you tell that they are ignored?

Re: Network speed

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 08:55:38 GMT

I can't. I just see that nothing changed when I modified them. There are no error messages whatsoever.

Wim