Subject: Throughput loss after unknown server change

From: "Alex Alegado" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 19:19:01 -0500 (EST)

Hello all. I'm having a problem that seems to defy my attempts at trouble-shooting. Maybe 
someone can give me a clue.

I used to run a netatalk (1.4b2) install under Suse 6.4 Linux on a 300MHz AMD K6-2 machine 
with 128MB. Recently, I changed-over to a 500MHz AMD K6-2 box with similar RAM and 
comparable NIC (both are 10/100 cards the former by Kingston the latter by NetGear and 
both believed to be reliable) ostensibly to get an overall performance increase since the 
Linux box is used for both file and print services the latter using GhostScript.

With the old Linux machine I was able to get 8MB/s file transfers using AFP over TCP/IP which 
is very nice. :^) This particular throughput was measured on a G4 Mystic (dual 450MHz) using 
a NetGear 10/100 switch. On a Yosemite G3 on the same switch accessing the same server I 
noticed similar performance.

After the change-over to the "faster" AMD machine, on both the G3 and G4 the AFP over 
TCP/IP performance is 90KB/s! I forced an AFP over AppleTalk connection and realized 
throughput of about 3MB/s -- pretty darn good but much less than what I used to get. For 
some reason, something is limiting throughput for AFP over TPC/IP but not AFP over 
AppleTalk!

I tried a quick and dirty test of using Personal File Sharing over TCP/IP (the G3 serving the G4) 
and measure about 1MB/s transfer rates. This is a good number but still much less than I've 
seen. Since I don't normally run things this way, I can't say if this number is really "good" or if 
it shows a symptom of my problem.

The change over on the Linux machines involved a complete re-load of Linux. In both cases I 
used Suse's "Default" installation and added the netatalk 1.4b2 package as an RPM.

What boggles me is that all the obvious software issues are similar from the old to the new 
server. Similarly, the server hardware is nothing if not better although in the case of the hard 
drives they are exactly the same since I transplanted the drives.

The print services work fine. I'm evening printing to LPR queues on the LInux box from the 
Macs and they work as expected.

Has anyone seen this behavior? Offer a clue? I think this is a server issue but what?

TIA!

-- 
 Alex Alegado, [email-masked], 626.524.0624 Cel w/VMail  
   Prepress Supervisor, California Plasticard  
     213.742.9852 Voice, 213.742.0086 FAX, http://www.cpicardgroup.com 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 the.ThoughtShop.net -- Low-cost web-hosting and design... 
   Apache-based Miva, CGI, PHP, MySQL support 
     [email-masked], http://the.ThoughtShop.net

---

From: Lars Georg Sander <[email-masked]>
Date: 01 Nov 2000 09:32:43 CET

On Tue, 31 Oct 2000 19:19:01 -0500 (EST), Alex Alegado said:

Alex,
>  drives they are exactly the same since I transplanted the drives.
are you running your own kernel? I have had quit a bit of time and history
playing with NICs and MAC clients. Only the 3com 905 series _always_ turned out
to be a sure shot. Note that this is true for MAC clients. SMB (windows)
clients are not as picky at the servers NIC. 

regrads,
Lars

PS: with the 3com on the server we obtain a 10-11MB/s with Helios LanTest ;-)
Btw: months ago the 3com linux drivers were just as stable and fast as the
kernel ones.