Linux = Lag

C

Carlosinfl

Loves the juice
Joined
Sep 25, 2002
Messages
6,633
So I removed XP from my machine that was runnin IIS for a small web server and installed Linux FC3 / Apache which is working great but I have noticed that now when my Linux box is on, I can't play XBOX Live. It is amazingly slow and choppy which I never had problems with on XP. Is there something in Linux FC3 that could make me lag so bad in XBOX Live?

What should or can I do to see if Linux is the main issue? When I shut the Linux machine off, my XBOX Live seems to run smooth.

I don't know Linux well enough to tweak it for optimal use. Here is my network diagram...

Internet > Cable Modem > Linksys WRT54G > Linksys Switch > LAN.

Anything on my LAN is wired to the switch and is not wireless including the XBOX.
 
I guy I know has had some similar issues with a router: If he connected a linux computer to it, things slowed down insanely, and another connected computer (running Win98, of all things) immediately crashed. I suspect that was a linksys router as well, but I'll have to ask him tomorrow. This repeated for two different computers and at least two different distros (gentoo and slackware, IIRC), which seems to indicate a general problem. I can't imagine what it should be, though.

You could fire up ethereal and look through the traffic for anything unusual (or post a link to the dump here for us to enjoy), or perhaps firewall off everything but port 22 and 80.

Getting a switch and/or router from another company might help, but that's a really unelegant solution with no guarantee of working.
 
HHunt

I just assume its Linux and nothing else since my router and switch have been flawless on Windows XP Pro since I have been running it for 2 years. I ran a bandwidth test from the only machine now running on the LAN (Fedora 3 server) and ran a speed test from www.cnet.com

- 2386 kbps
- 2472 kbps

What do you mean by:
post a link to the dump here for us to enjoy
Click to expand...

Is there some thing I can pull up in my server to see stats of what is using system resources and what not. Please show me how I can run the app to as I am still trying to fiddle may way around in Linux.

Thanks so much!
 
Well, the problem seems to be neither Linksys routers nor Linux, but the interaction between them. (But as I said, I'll have to ask him if it was Linksys he had problems with.)

As for the dumping, get hold of Ethereal and start a capture, plug in the computer, wait until problems appear, and stop the capture. You'll then have a dump of all network traffic to and from your computer, which might give some clue as to what causes this.

There's fedora packages on the download page for ethereal. As for how to install it, I'm really rusty with rpm. Try "rpm -Uvh filename", or read "man rpm" first.
Also, remember to choose the right network interface when starting the dump.
(I've tried to capture from lo0 a time or two, and wondered why it didn't see any traffic. :D )

For a list of running processes, there's top and ps. netstat lets you see lots of information about network traffic. (And do read the man pages, especially for ps and netstat. They're kind of hard to use otherwise. :) )
 
carloswill said:
This sounds like a cool utility but when I get to http://www.ethereal.com/distribution/rpms/, ther are so many options I don't know which one I need. I don't understand the difference between them all or why there are so many options...
Click to expand...

Uhm ... good question. I'm used to a somewhat different system, to be honest.
However. Fedora includes yum, IIRC. You should be able to do "yum install ethereal", or something similar to have it download and install for you. Let me search a few man pages.

edit: Yup. Short introduction here, long here. Essentially:
yum check-update
yum install ethereal
and you ought to have ethereal installed.

"check-update" will download the information neccesary for yum to work, and will also ensure you get the newest available packages. Run it once in a while, and before the first time you use yum.
(While discussing yum, "yum update" ought to update all installed packages, if you should want to.)

reedit: I have to go to bed. It's 03:07 here and school tomorrow.
 
My friends and girlfriend too notice the internet being super slow as that is all I hear and the demand for Windows is being shouted at me from everyone in the home.

I have disabled the Linux built in firewall, swapper the cable to onboard LAN2 instead of onboard LAN1.

I think I want to wipe the drive again and maybe try another distro to see if I notice anything because it may just be Fedora 3. I never notice any issues with FC1 or FC2 on this hardware set up.

I guess my troubleshooting is very limited in Linux to just either try and or move on. :(
 
Try to see if you have funky iptables rules.
Code: 
man iptables
/sbin/iptables -L --line-numbers

Check and see if your ethernet devices are dropping packets:
Code: 
/sbin/ifconfig

sample output:
Code: 
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:04:5A:72:6A:2A
          inet addr:192.168.0.2  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1866338 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:1
          TX packets:2312384 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:413085766 (393.9 Mb)  TX bytes:1795993295 (1712.7 Mb)
          Interrupt:5 Base address:0xb800

If you have a number of errors then you may have a problem with routing or a faulty NIC.

If all else fails try Gentoo. ;)
 
I would love to install Gentoo. Not just for the fact that it looks like a really cool distro and its way more looked upto in the Linux community but just for the simple fact that people will stop recommending the dam thing :D

As far as dropped packets, I have none...

Code: 
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 
          inet addr:192.168.1.101  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4433 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3592 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:4321867 (4.1 MiB)  TX bytes:530264 (517.8 KiB)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x6000

I swapped the LAN cable to eth1 instead of eth0 and will see if this helps. I am scared that Apache is the casue of this lag in my network. I can't see how since I had IIS running for 3 months and IIS is a horrible resource hog but never had an issue with bandwidth.
The site I am hosting is very small and is only hosting small pics and media for me and friends.
 
How much upload bandwidth do you have? It could be as simple as someone hammering your site which would lag everything out. I would disable apache on the Fedora machine and see if the lag stops.
 
This may sound obvious, but make sure the xbox and *nix box don't have the same ip. Also, Doesn't that router have a built in 4 port switch? If not, I'm fairly certain that the uplink cable on a linksys 4port switch disables one of the ports--may want to switch them out to make sure it's all good.
 
loop said:
How much upload bandwidth do you have? It could be as simple as someone hammering your site which would lag everything out. I would disable apache on the Fedora machine and see if the lag stops.
Click to expand...

Lag stops when Apache is disabled. Why is this? Is Apache suppose to create lag?
 
My advice would be find the logs for Apache and see what it is doing.
 
Would anyone know where the log for Apache is so I can see or maybe post it for anyone to review?
 
On SuSE, it would be under /var/log/httpd. FC3 might be different, but if you start looking in /var/log/ you'd probably be on the right track.
 
Which log do you think I should check?

Code: 
[root@server httpd]# ls
access_log  error_log  ssl_access_log  ssl_error_log  ssl_request_log
 
carloswill said:
Which log do you think I should check?

Code: 
[root@server httpd]# ls
access_log  error_log  ssl_access_log  ssl_error_log  ssl_request_log
Click to expand...
Well I don't think checking them all is really going to hurt now is it.
 
Access log shows you anything that people tried to access and did get.

Error Logs show you things where files couldn't be found, or there was a problem in a file that was accessed, etc.

The SSL logs are for Secure Socket Layer connections.

Is the Linux box acting as your firewall too? If not, it shouldn't be dumping anything out unless you have a lot of people hitting your website on the box.
 
Do you have the apache port open to the world? Its possible that your isp is constantly checking to see if port 80 or 443 or some other ports are open and running to make sure that you don't run a webserver with your connection. Check your access_log and see what's going on.
 
This is just out of the ballpark here, but is your linux box running samba? I've heard of situations where samba and windows will fight to be nameserver for a workgroup.
 
doh said:
Try to see if you have funky iptables rules.
Code: 
man iptables
/sbin/iptables -L --line-numbers

Check and see if your ethernet devices are dropping packets:
Code: 
/sbin/ifconfig

sample output:
Code: 
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:04:5A:72:6A:2A
          inet addr:192.168.0.2  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1866338 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:1
          TX packets:2312384 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:413085766 (393.9 Mb)  TX bytes:1795993295 (1712.7 Mb)
          Interrupt:5 Base address:0xb800

If you have a number of errors then you may have a problem with routing or a faulty NIC.

If all else fails try Gentoo. ;)
Click to expand...


Im having a lag issue with gentoo. Going thorugh a PCMCIA card for ehternet.

/sbin/ifconfig
Instead of:
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
I get:
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

Stuff I ping usually results in a 66% packet loss.
 
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