Subject: Netatalk slow as all get out

From: Ted <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 20:07:02 -0500

Hello, all.

I've spent the last few days banging my head against the proverbial wall
with a problem with netatalk that I've never had before. Every other time
I've set it up, it worked lickety split - this time I've been losing sleep
over it!

Here's what's happening. I fire up the system -it's a dual P3,733 MHz, 512
Meg's o'RAM, 2 40 gig HD's, and a 3Com 3C590. Okay, this is going to sound
bad, but I'm only 95% sure on the card model - the first card was a 3Com
3C905-TX, but it would saturate the network whenever it did anything, not
letting ANY traffic through. The second card I put in (the 3C590) now won't
saturate the network, but whenever I try to log onto it from the Macintoshes
(all of them are running System 9.1 on G4's of various speeds.)  The Mac
slows to a crawl, taking upwards of 5 minutes to log in, another few before
the system is responsive again, and another 3 or 4 minutes to log off of the
Linux machine (Oh yeah, the system is running TurboLinux Server 7, upgraded
to kernel 2.4.17) As for the rest of their network, their internet
connection is a DSL line plugged into a Linksys gateway/router, from there
it goes into a 10baseT hub, and the rest of the machines sprawl out from
there - including 2 printers - a 10baseT connected QMS 860, and an Apple
LaserWriter 2 connected to the 10baseT network via a localtalk junction box.

I've been reading HOWTO's, mailing list archives, manuals, etc. . . etc. .
., and still, I cannot get any acceptable level of performance out of this
machine - netatalk wise. Everything else runs fine in the meantime -
compiling, database access, etc.  I've adjusted the afpd.conf, atalkd.conf
and their ilk to attemp various setting issues. I've specified the machines
address with -ipaddr 192.168.1.10 to try and address any DNS issues. I've
turned off the named daemon. I've replaced the cable ends on some of the
wires (some of them were awful).

I'm going nuts with this. I set up my home Appletalk network on an SMP
machine (granted, it's a dual 133, rather than 733), and most of the
documents I've read the last few days have mentioned SMP scheduling problems
with 2.0 and 2.2 kernels, so I'm not sure how much of it applies here.

If anyone on this this has ANY suggestions as to what I might try next,
please help me.  Perhaps this isn't even a netatalk problem, but I've been
able to get decent internet performance without slowing everyone down on the
network. The network 3C905 is new, the 3C590 is out of my home server, and I
know it works.

Sorry for being so wordy. If you can help me, I'll be sure to buy you some
beer (or scotch, or whatever you pleaure) if you are in the London, Ontario
area anytime.

Cheers!
Greg Marsh
---
I'm like a chocoholic, except with booze.

---

From: Ray Shaw <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 22:39:58 -0500

> I've set it up, it worked lickety split - this time I've been losing sleep

I've seen similar performance issues with netatalk before, and wasn't
able to solve the problem on the client end; if anyone has suggestions
for this, please let me know.

Background: netatalk server is a CompaQ Prolient (kill!) with Debian
potato and a 2.4 kernel, using one real Tulip NIC and one ThunderLAN
card.  Clients are three 9600/300 machines and two G4/450 machines,
all running OS 9 (no Quark for OS X yet).

The ethernet in our building is...less than ideal at the
moment (something about too many hubs).  The Linux and Win98 machines
seem to handle the network OK, but when I had both the netatalk server
and the Macs plugged into our subnet, performance was bad.  In between
selecting the server and getting the username/password dialog would be
a pause for a minute or more, and possibly also a pause between
entering the password and being connected.  File transfer speeds were
averaging one megabyte per minute, and often failing.  However, the
transfer speeds were only bad when uploading from the Macs to the
server...in the other direction, they were OK.  Ack!  The problem was
the same when the fileserver moved into the university server room.

Curiously, Macs in the student labs and residential network had no
trouble connecting with/using the netatalk server.  I had someone who
actually really knew what they were doing WRT Macs go over the
configuration of my workstations, installed OS updates, etc., to no
avail.

Finally, I set up netatalk on my laptop (using a D-Link PCMCIA nic).
I plugged it into the school network -- same problem.  I plugged it
and one Mac into a hub -- aha!  Performance was much better.

So the solution was to move the fileserver into the room with the Macs
(and alas, out of the temperature-controlled, secure server room with
2 hours of UPS), set up an internal network, and have the Macs access
the internet via NAT through the fileserver.  Performance is good, but
the login delay is still there...except that sometimes it just goes
through right away!

I really, really hope that your network isn't as Pure Evil as the
portion of the school network in our building (a network tester
plugged into the wall indicated frame errors...).  Let's not talk
about trying to have a radio station in the same building with
internet streams :)

If anyone has advice about the login pause, or operating on
an...imperfect network, it would be greatly appreciated.

-- 
--Ray

-----------------------------
Sotto la panca la capra crepa
sopra la panca la capra campa

---

From: Tyler Hardison <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 21:42:04 -0800

Does this happen when saving out of QuarkXpress? 

Thanks

Tyler.
On Tuesday 19 February 2002 19:39, Ray Shaw wrote:
> > I've set it up, it worked lickety split - this time I've been losing
> > sleep over it!
>