Subject: [netatalk-admins] Extremly slow data-transfer rate!

From: Andreas Haumer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 18:46:15 +0200

Hi!

This is my first attempt to use netatalk under Linux, but I have some
strange problems: the Linux file-server is visible to all Apples in
the
network, Linux sees all Appletalk services on the net (using nbplkup),
I can access the Linux server from the Apples using a real account,
but
the performance is extremly poor: I get about 10-20kByte/s (read: ten
to
twenty kilobyte per second!) data-transfer rate, both when copying
files
to and from the Linux server.

The Linux system was to replace a Windows NT server in a quite large 
network, but with the NT machine we get transfer rates of more than 
1MByte/s (100MBit Ethernet), so the Linux system didn't look very
good!

I have no idea what's going on here: I looked through all the HOWTOS
and mailing-list archives I could find, but so far nobody seems to
have
had a similar problem.

Hardware-setup:
ASUS P/I-P55T2P4, AMD K6-233 CPU, 256MB RAM, 4GB SCSI HDD
(system-disk)
5x4GB UW SCSI HDD on two AHA2940UW (building a SW-RAID5 with 16GB
size),
DE500 Ethernet adapter (I also tried a Lantronix LEA-P2T 10BaseT card)
SCSI CD-ROM.

Software-setup:
Linux-2.0.33, netatalk-1.4b2 (no patches), libc-5.4.44, the usual
stuff
is quite up-to-date.

The Appletalk network uses 100Base-TX Ethernet with switches, about
50 network nodes (Workstations, servers, printers, ...)

The Apples are running MacOS 8

The Linux software RAID5 is quite powerful (iozone reports about 8MB/s 
write and 16MB/s read througput), and with TCP/IP I get the results
one
would expect in that environment (I tried it with FTP between two
Linux
machines).

Does anyone have an idea what could be wrong with my setup? Any known
incompatibility with my setup?
Is there any Appletalk client for Linux, so I can test my setup
without
using "real" Apples (I don't have access to that network right now!)

TIA,

- andreas

-- 
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---

From: Andras Kadinger <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 May 1998 03:44:02 +0200

Hallo Andreas,

Andreas Haumer wrote:
> but the performance is extremly poor: I get about 10-20kByte/s (read:
> ten to twenty kilobyte per second!) data-transfer rate, both when
> copying files to and from the Linux server.

I can also only reinforce, that the problem has to be somewhere in Your
installation, since I could get around 3-4MB/sec with
netatalk-1.4b2+asun18.2 on Linux 2.0.33 with a tulip card. This was a
test installation with no routers/hubs whatsoever; interestingly enough,
I had different card models to test, and some of them did very similarly
to what You describe: it transferred some data in a quick burst, the
just sat there for a couple of seconds, maybe half a minute, and the
link LED was blinking during this time. The result was a similar 10K/sec
average throughput, just like what You describe.

Might You experience the same?

> DE500 Ethernet adapter (I also tried a Lantronix LEA-P2T 10BaseT card)

If You had problems with both cards, the problem might be in one of Your
Macintosh cards (or the router/hub, but this is not very probable).
Cabling should also be checked.

You could also try both kernel drivers Linux provides You for tulip
cards.

> stuff is quite up-to-date.

Try Adrian's patch set; that would help performance by making ASIP
(AppleShare over TCP/IP) available. But Your performance problems most
probably are not rooted in netatalk. Adrian's patch set is available
from:

ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu:/public/asun/

> 50 network nodes (Workstations, servers, printers, ...)

It also might help to simplify the network for the time of testing, if
You can.

> The Apples are running MacOS 8

That should not be the cause, although You might want to upgrade to 8.1.

> one would expect in that environment (I tried it with FTP between two
> Linux machines).

Then switch to Adrian's patch set, and see how things work over TCP/IP
for You.

> without using "real" Apples (I don't have access to that network
> right now!)

There is one called 'afpfs', which last time I checked was in beta and
thus might not be suitable for testing purposes. Here is the URL:

http://www.odyssey.co.il/~heksterb/Software/afpfs/

Sincerely,
Andras Kadinger
[email-masked]