Terrible Web Surfing Speed

Chris Carlen wrote:

> Suse 9.1.
>
> I switched to SBC/Yahoo DSL a few months ago.**Big*mistake.**It's*way
> too consumer oriented.

.... i used sbc/yahoo dsl approaching two years ago with
no issues. i suspect you dont have something configured
properly. you've set up PPPOE, right?

the one difference, and i assume since you didnt mention,
is that i used a router and set it up for PPPOE. however,
for a short period before the router, i did have a direct
connect (no router) using RP-PPPOE and for a brief stint,
using the Yast DSL module
--
<< http://michaeljtobler.homelinux.com/ >>
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
-- Robert Benchley

Hi:

Suse 9.1.

I switched to SBC/Yahoo DSL a few months ago. Big mistake. It's way
too consumer oriented.

I quickly got it working with my Linksys WRT54G router. I somehow
managed to find the DNS server addresses by Googling. Their stupid help
pages only tell one how to check that Windows has them set to automatic
via DHCP.

But I am not using DHCP. My LAN hosts thus have manually set DNS servers.

Everything seemed to be fine until suddenly about two weeks ago, web
surfing in Linux became severely slow. Like 30 seconds to load cnn.com.
Web pages *do* load, but only after a very long initial delay. After
that they actually fill in pretty quickly. Ping behavior is similar. A
very long time to do the initial lookup, then it runs fairly normal.
FTP downloads run at 300kB/s so there's no problem with the basic
networking. FTP within the LAN hits 11MB/s.

I was using the DNS servers from Yahoo/SBC:

63.203.35.55
206.13.28.12


Then I switched to the free DNS servers:

205.166.226.38
69.67.108.10

and things got a lot better, which leads me to suspect something wierd
is going on with the DNS. But with these free servers, web surfing is
still slower than when the SBC/Yahoo servers were working.

Of course, things work fine with Windows hosts within the LAN. Even a
Win2k inside a VMware on this Linux box surfs normally. Instant loading
with IE of most pages compared to 10-30 second waits on Linux. Oh,
problem is with both Mozilla and Konqueror web browsers.

Also, there were messages on the Suse mailing list about ipv6 being a
problem. I disabled ipv6 but the problem persists.

What can I do to take the next step fixing this?



--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
(E-Mail Removed)
SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5

mjt wrote:
> Chris Carlen wrote:
>
>
>>Suse 9.1.
>>
>>I switched to SBC/Yahoo DSL a few months ago. Big mistake. It's way
>>too consumer oriented.
>
>
> ... i used sbc/yahoo dsl approaching two years ago with
> no issues. i suspect you dont have something configured
> properly. you've set up PPPOE, right?
>
> the one difference, and i assume since you didnt mention,
> is that i used a router and set it up for PPPOE. however,
> for a short period before the router, i did have a direct
> connect (no router) using RP-PPPOE and for a brief stint,
> using the Yast DSL module

You didn't past the first paragraph, obviously.

As I said, it is a LAN behind a Linksys router. The router is
configured with PPPOE and is working fine, as evidenced by the fact that
Windows LAN hosts surf at warp speed.

Only Linux is broke. But it was working well before, then suddenly
changed. BOTH Linux hosts deteriorated at the same time. No automatic
updates or anything were performed. One Linux host has now been
reinstalled due to other reasons, and it too surfs at a crawl with it's
out of the box settings (except of course for the network settings which
were entered into the Yast tool of Suse 9.1).

So either SBC DSL changed something that makes it not work well with
Linux, or something in Linux is not right.

What is it?


Thanks.




--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
(E-Mail Removed)
SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5

On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 20:14:57 -0800, Chris Carlen wrote:

> Hi:
>
> Suse 9.1.
>
> I switched to SBC/Yahoo DSL a few months ago. Big mistake. It's way
> too consumer oriented.
>
> I quickly got it working with my Linksys WRT54G router. I somehow
> managed to find the DNS server addresses by Googling. Their stupid help
> pages only tell one how to check that Windows has them set to automatic
> via DHCP.
>
> But I am not using DHCP. My LAN hosts thus have manually set DNS servers.
>
> Everything seemed to be fine until suddenly about two weeks ago, web
> surfing in Linux became severely slow. Like 30 seconds to load cnn.com.
> Web pages *do* load, but only after a very long initial delay. After
> that they actually fill in pretty quickly. Ping behavior is similar. A
> very long time to do the initial lookup, then it runs fairly normal.
> FTP downloads run at 300kB/s so there's no problem with the basic
> networking. FTP within the LAN hits 11MB/s.
>
> I was using the DNS servers from Yahoo/SBC:
>
> 63.203.35.55
> 206.13.28.12
>
>
> Then I switched to the free DNS servers:
>
> 205.166.226.38
> 69.67.108.10
>
> and things got a lot better, which leads me to suspect something wierd
> is going on with the DNS. But with these free servers, web surfing is
> still slower than when the SBC/Yahoo servers were working.
>
> Of course, things work fine with Windows hosts within the LAN. Even a
> Win2k inside a VMware on this Linux box surfs normally. Instant loading
> with IE of most pages compared to 10-30 second waits on Linux. Oh,
> problem is with both Mozilla and Konqueror web browsers.
>
> Also, there were messages on the Suse mailing list about ipv6 being a
> problem. I disabled ipv6 but the problem persists.
>
> What can I do to take the next step fixing this?

try

options timeout:1

in your /etc/resolv.conf file. It seems as though the default timeout for
Linux is 5 seconds and some dns servers don't seem to catch Linux requests
the first time. Also make sure you have ipv6 disabled. The ipv6 disable
cut time on some mandrake systems I installed from about 45 seconds to
resolv to about 12 seconds - timeout cut it to virtually nothing.

Chris Carlen wrote:
> mjt wrote:
> > Chris Carlen wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Suse 9.1.
> >>
> >>I switched to SBC/Yahoo DSL a few months ago. Big mistake. It's
way
> >>too consumer oriented.
> >
> >
> > ... i used sbc/yahoo dsl approaching two years ago with
> > no issues. i suspect you dont have something configured
> > properly. you've set up PPPOE, right?
> >
> > the one difference, and i assume since you didnt mention,
> > is that i used a router and set it up for PPPOE. however,
> > for a short period before the router, i did have a direct
> > connect (no router) using RP-PPPOE and for a brief stint,
> > using the Yast DSL module
>
> You didn't past the first paragraph, obviously.
>
> As I said, it is a LAN behind a Linksys router. The router is
> configured with PPPOE and is working fine, as evidenced by the fact
that
> Windows LAN hosts surf at warp speed.

And let's see, what is the difference in their setup? Could it be that
they are using DHCP and thus receive new network configuration changes,
such as, uh, DNS and GW, every time they boot up. Ain't technology
amazin'.

> Only Linux is broke. But it was working well before, then suddenly
> changed. ...

Linux isn't broke but it also didn't change. Your ISP's networking IPs
changed and you won't be automagically updated using static info.
Sorta the purpose of using DHCP.

> ... BOTH Linux hosts deteriorated at the same time. No automatic
> updates or anything were performed.

Exactly the problem.

> One Linux host has now been
> reinstalled due to other reasons, and it too surfs at a crawl with
it's
> out of the box settings (except of course for the network settings
which
> were entered into the Yast tool of Suse 9.1).

Because it is having to route packets through a convoluted -- probably
low priority -- DNS pathway.

> So either SBC DSL changed something ...

Well, duh, yeh they changed something. Their DNS servers. Your
Windows machines are fully informed of this but you have failed to
inform your Linux boxes of the changes. Don't blame your ISP if you
choose not to use their resources or keep your set up current.

> ... that makes it not work well with
> Linux, or something in Linux is not right.

Just the person controlling the machine. If you use static networking
settings on a network set up to use DHCP, don't be surprised when
changes are not automatically reflected in your static setup.

If you set up your Linux boxes to use DHCP, they too will enjoy the
wonders of DHCP and will be automatically informed of network changes.
DNS servers, especially, are prone to change IPs as a result of
maintenance, failures, re-configuration, etc.

It's your choice ;-)

hth,
prg
email above disabled

prg wrote:
>>Windows LAN hosts surf at warp speed.
>
>
> And let's see, what is the difference in their setup? Could it be that
> they are using DHCP and thus receive new network configuration changes,
> such as, uh, DNS and GW, every time they boot up. Ain't technology
> amazin'.

No, the Windows and Linux hosts are configured with *static* IPs and DNS
server configurations. All hosts are on a LAN behind a Linksys router.
It is the router that gets dynamic IP through DHCP from the ISP. That
is working correctly. The LAN hosts must have static IPs because they
are running NFS. Perhaps there is a way to set that up with DHCP
running on the router. Do you know if this can be done? Without DHCP
on the router, I can't have dynamic DNS server setting on the LAN hosts,
so they are static.

So the Windows stand alone machine and Windows VMware machine have
static IPs, AND the Windows hosts also have the static DNS server addresses!

Therefore the Windows and Linuxes are very much the same. Only Linux
goes slow.

>
>>Only Linux is broke. But it was working well before, then suddenly
>>changed. ...
>
>
> Linux isn't broke but it also didn't change. Your ISP's networking IPs
> changed and you won't be automagically updated using static info.
> Sorta the purpose of using DHCP.

That Linux didn't change is true. Something is broke, probably the ISP,
or there is something funky about the way Linux talks to the internet,
that due to some change in configuration at the ISP, now causes problems.

>>... BOTH Linux hosts deteriorated at the same time. No automatic
>>updates or anything were performed.
>
> Exactly the problem.
>
>>One Linux host has now been
>>reinstalled due to other reasons, and it too surfs at a crawl with
>
> it's out of the box settings (except of course for the network settings
>
> which
>
>>were entered into the Yast tool of Suse 9.1).
>
> Because it is having to route packets through a convoluted -- probably
> low priority -- DNS pathway.
>
>>So either SBC DSL changed something ...
>
> Well, duh, yeh they changed something. Their DNS servers. Your
> Windows machines are fully informed of this but you have failed to
> inform your Linux boxes of the changes. Don't blame your ISP if you
> choose not to use their resources or keep your set up current.

No, read above. Windows have static DNS setup same as Linux and work fine.


Thanks for input.


Good day!

--
__________________________________________________ _____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
(E-Mail Removed) -- NOTE: Remove "BOGUS" from email address to reply.

On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:41:14 -0800, Chris Carlen wrote:


> No, the Windows and Linux hosts are configured with *static* IPs and DNS
> server configurations. All hosts are on a LAN behind a Linksys router.
> It is the router that gets dynamic IP through DHCP from the ISP. That
> is working correctly. The LAN hosts must have static IPs because they
> are running NFS. Perhaps there is a way to set that up with DHCP
> running on the router. Do you know if this can be done? Without DHCP
> on the router, I can't have dynamic DNS server setting on the LAN hosts,
> so they are static.

OK, wait. Are you doing NAT at the router or do you have static IPs
assigned to you by your ISP for each machine? Or did you just assign
random IPs to your internal hosts?

Yes, you can have DHCP and name resolution; read the docs for dhcpd and
bind; you're looking for DDNS.
>
> That Linux didn't change is true. Something is broke, probably the ISP,
> or there is something funky about the way Linux talks to the internet,
> that due to some change in configuration at the ISP, now causes problems.

Well, perhaps your router/ISP is issuing ICMP redirects and your linux box
ain't set up to accept them?

I don't know if Windows accepts redirects by default; it makes it easier
for the user but opens up security holes.... Hmmm. Which way would
Windows lean? :-)

As root, run this command:

for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do echo 1 > $f; done

See if that helps.

Captain Dondo wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:41:14 -0800, Chris Carlen wrote:
>
>
>
>>No, the Windows and Linux hosts are configured with *static* IPs and DNS
>>server configurations. All hosts are on a LAN behind a Linksys router.
>> It is the router that gets dynamic IP through DHCP from the ISP. That
>>is working correctly. The LAN hosts must have static IPs because they
>>are running NFS. Perhaps there is a way to set that up with DHCP
>>running on the router. Do you know if this can be done? Without DHCP
>>on the router, I can't have dynamic DNS server setting on the LAN hosts,
>>so they are static.
>
>
> OK, wait. Are you doing NAT at the router or do you have static IPs
> assigned to you by your ISP for each machine? Or did you just assign
> random IPs to your internal hosts?

Yes. The router does NAT, the hosts inside the LAN have static IPs on
local net 192.168.X.0.

> Yes, you can have DHCP and name resolution; read the docs for dhcpd and
> bind; you're looking for DDNS.

Yeah, I did understand this can be done. I could set the router to run
its DHCP server, and set up the Linux and Windows boxes to receive
dynamic IPs, from the router of course, not the ISP.

And I understand the DNS server addresses can be passed from the router
to the LAN hosts as well. I haven't tried this, but rather chose static
IPs for the LAN hosts, because I thought this would make configuration
of NFS easier.

I will have to investigate if there is a way for Linux hosts to share
files via NFS in a dynamic IP environment. So perhaps you rsuggestions
to look into the stated docs will shed light on this question as well.

Of course, it wouldn't hurt to just try DHCP temporarily to see if it
fixes my slowness problem, and just turn off NFS for the experiment.

>>That Linux didn't change is true. Something is broke, probably the ISP,
>>or there is something funky about the way Linux talks to the internet,
>>that due to some change in configuration at the ISP, now causes problems.
>
>
> Well, perhaps your router/ISP is issuing ICMP redirects and your linux box
> ain't set up to accept them?

That's a new theory, and I'm glad to hear it. Any plausible explanation
that can be tested is good news.

> I don't know if Windows accepts redirects by default; it makes it easier
> for the user but opens up security holes.... Hmmm. Which way would
> Windows lean? :-)
>
> As root, run this command:
>
> for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do echo 1 > $f; done
>
> See if that helps.

I will do that later and report the results.


Thanks.

Good day!



--
__________________________________________________ _____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
(E-Mail Removed) -- NOTE: Remove "BOGUS" from email address to reply.

I had the EXACT same problem. After lots of searching, I finally found
an updated set of static DNS addresses for SBC dsl. Check out this
link:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/faq/428

I changed my static dns settings from:
206.141.195.204
206.141.192.60

to these addresses:
66.73.20.40
206.141.193.55

The link above lists IP addresses by city/state. Pick from the list -
don't just use my settings.

After switching to the new addresses I didn't see any delay longer than
what I see using my WinXP box. Interestingly though, my XP box still
uses the "old" dns addresses - and works great. Both boxes are set to
use static IP and static dns addresses. Both boxes sit behind my linux
nat gateway.

Chris Carlen wrote:
> Captain Dondo wrote:
> > On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:41:14 -0800, Chris Carlen wrote:
> >
> >>No, the Windows and Linux hosts are configured with *static* IPs
and DNS
> >>server configurations. All hosts are on a LAN behind a Linksys
router.
> >> It is the router that gets dynamic IP through DHCP from the ISP.
That
> >>is working correctly. The LAN hosts must have static IPs because
they
> >>are running NFS. Perhaps there is a way to set that up with DHCP
> >>running on the router. Do you know if this can be done? Without
DHCP
> >>on the router, I can't have dynamic DNS server setting on the LAN
hosts,
> >>so they are static.
> >
> >
> > OK, wait. Are you doing NAT at the router or do you have static
IPs
> > assigned to you by your ISP for each machine? Or did you just
assign
> > random IPs to your internal hosts?
>
> Yes. The router does NAT, the hosts inside the LAN have static IPs
on
> local net 192.168.X.0.
>
> > Yes, you can have DHCP and name resolution; read the docs for dhcpd
and
> > bind; you're looking for DDNS.
>
> Yeah, I did understand this can be done. I could set the router to
run
> its DHCP server, and set up the Linux and Windows boxes to receive
> dynamic IPs, from the router of course, not the ISP.
>
> And I understand the DNS server addresses can be passed from the
router
> to the LAN hosts as well. I haven't tried this, but rather chose
static
> IPs for the LAN hosts, because I thought this would make
configuration
> of NFS easier.
>
> I will have to investigate if there is a way for Linux hosts to share

> files via NFS in a dynamic IP environment. So perhaps you
rsuggestions
> to look into the stated docs will shed light on this question as
well.
>
> Of course, it wouldn't hurt to just try DHCP temporarily to see if it

> fixes my slowness problem, and just turn off NFS for the experiment.
>
> >>That Linux didn't change is true. Something is broke, probably the
ISP,
> >>or there is something funky about the way Linux talks to the
internet,
> >>that due to some change in configuration at the ISP, now causes
problems.

No, wouldn't it affect Win hosts as well? It has to be a difference
between your Win setup and your Linux setup. Since they are both using
static entries they must be looking for name resolution in different
places/orders.

/etc/nsswitch.conf (?)
/etc/host.conf (?)
/etc/resolv.conf (?)

Side effect of NFS? Do the Win boxes use NFS? It seems you are timing
out when Linux does name lookups before it ever goes to DNS servers?
Different order of DNS servers?

> > Well, perhaps your router/ISP is issuing ICMP redirects and your
linux box
> > ain't set up to accept them?
>
> That's a new theory, and I'm glad to hear it. Any plausible
explanation
> that can be tested is good news.
>
> > I don't know if Windows accepts redirects by default; it makes it
easier
> > for the user but opens up security holes.... Hmmm. Which way would
> > Windows lean? :-)
> >
> > As root, run this command:
> >
> > for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do echo 1 >
$f; done
> >
> > See if that helps.

$ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects
1
1
1
1
Seems true _is_ the default. Besides, most ISPs have only one way to
connect via the GW. It works or it don't

Can't imagine them not correcting route entries on their own network to
avoid re-directs to name servers.

What is your browsing like when using an IP # instead of DNS lookup?
Eg:
linux-sound.org ( http://199.239.233.68 )

Does it matter what web browser you're using? Seem to recall an issue
with Mozilla a while back, but don't recall the setting. Arrrgh...

Are you using SBC/Yahoo portal software in Windows? Perhaps something
has changed that Win picked up and cached that your Linux browser did
not/could not?

Have you compared the MTU used by the Win boxes to the MTU used on
Linux?

My ideas are getting more and more lame -- better quit. Still can't
help but think it's a name lookup time out ...

I misconstrued "Windows has them set to automatic via DHCP." Dog-gone
it, thought I had found someone else making a silly oversight. I must
still be the only one doing it ;-(

good luck,
prg
email above disabled