🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi All,

I have a Linux networking problem that really is confusing the hell out of
me. I have spent hours upon hours looking at it this week and have ended up
going nowhere. I appreciate all help, no matter how out there a solution may
seem. There seems to be no logic as far as I can see, but then I am fairly
new to Linux & indeed networking other than LANs.

Let the story begin....

System Spec:  AMD XP 1800+, 512MB DDR RAM, EPOX 8KA3+ Board, Standard Gfx
Card,Intel EtherExpress Pro 100B NIC & a 10 Mbit connection. The system runs
Red Hat 8.0

The system was set up in a server farm last monday and I am experiencing
some unusual problems. Basically, anything using UDP seems to perform
amazingly badly. Whether it be XMDCP (normal or over SSH), VNC and
CounterStrike / UT2003 they all perform lousily.

I had originally set the machine up to run a couple of online games (my
little indulgence), a web server with php & mysql, ftp and mail client and
set up VNC & XMDCP so I can remotely control & configure everything. XMDCP
took 15 minutes to display the login whereas over my LAN while I was
configuring the machine it worked instantly. The same as UT2003 - when setup
over the LAN was getting pings <20 constantly. VNC is usable, but only just.

I think UT2003 is the best example as it gives me more info on the
connection than the other tools so, I'll use that.

When I do a ICMP(?) - DOS prompt ping I constantly ping under 30ms even with
1024 byte packets. When I use the tracert (my box at home is Win2kpro) tool
I get these results constantly (I havent just pciked the best bunch of
figures):

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
     Tracing route to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
     over a maximum of 30 hops:

      1   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  BATMAN [192.168.0.1]
      2    10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  10.33.192.1
      3    10 ms    10 ms    20 ms  gsr01-du.blueyonder.co.uk
[62.31.176.129]
      4    10 ms    20 ms    10 ms  azt-wol-pos.telewest.net
[194.117.136.45]
      5    20 ms    20 ms    10 ms  tele1-azt-pos.telewest.net
[194.117.136.2]
      6    60 ms    20 ms    30 ms  e41-isp1-gw1-uk.cableinet.net
[194.117.140.9]
      7    40 ms    20 ms    20 ms  linx1.teleglobe.net [195.66.224.51]
      8    10 ms    20 ms    50 ms  if-0-0-0.bb2.London.Teleglobe.net
[195.219.96.81]
      9    20 ms    20 ms    20 ms  if-4-1-0-6.bb2.London.Teleglobe.net
[195.219.2.7]
     10    20 ms    20 ms    20 ms  th1-gw-fe.core.lon-sw6.mailbox.net.uk
[195.82.97.2]
     11    20 ms    20 ms    20 ms  xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

     Trace complete.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Everything so far I assume is normal!?

Then I set up a Unreal Tournament dedicated server. I spent a while tweaking
the .ini file so it would run optimally and have tried varients on the
settings. When I either (a)View the server over gamespy, (b)Use All Seeing
Eye to view the game or (c) Connect to the server from within the game I get
pings anywhere between 250>400 in no particular pattern, they just jump all
over the place. On occasions the game runs ok for say 1/2 hr every couple of
days but then the ping will just suddenly shoot right up. I do a DOS ping at
the same time and get all <30ms again!! All other server services are fine.
The processor loading is <40% running the server and memory usage is half.
SO I don not think it is loading on the server.

It is not my ISP as I have tried from several different ISPs and have had
friends try and view the connection on ASE/Gamespy and its the same whether
its Cable/Modem/ADSL. I have also run a benchmark tool accross the
connection (sending by the server and receiving on my home PC) and in 90
mins sending at  512kbps I got a packet loss of 0.43%.

It is not an issue between my gateway and my machine as the exact
performance problems appear when this is talking to the Linux webserver
also.

My current direction of thinking is now Linux Network Settings/Linux drivers
of NIC and possibly the route of the traffic (even though it shos up fine in
tracert).

ANY IDEAS (NO MATTER HOW RADICAL) WOULD BE VERY VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.

Thanks for reading!

Ben.