Poor network performance under X not OS 9

[ceenvee]

Ever since I've been using OS X on my work machine (currently a dual-1GHz Power Mac running 10.2.4), I've gotten poor performance when copying files to a Windows server. Poor = about 3 minutes to copy a 25 MB file, whereas my WinXP box next to the Mac does it in about 15 seconds.

Notably, if I reboot under OS 9 and copy the file via DAVE, it does it in about 15 seconds. So it's something with the OS X setup, not with the hardware.

I have tried setting the Ethernet port via the ifconfig command. I've tried both full-duplex and half-duplex with the following command

sudo ifconfig en0 media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex

Neither setting seems to help.

Any other ideas on what I could do? Thanks.

[hayne]

What do you get when you 'ping' the Windows machine from OS X ?

What does 'netstat -id' show you ? Look in particular for dropped packest & errors.

It seems likely that you were on the right track in trying config changes via ifconfig. Is the connection between your Mac & the Windows machine 100Mb/s ?

[ceenvee]

Thanks for the reply; I was hoping I'd get one.

I'll check some of these things tomorrow when I get to work, but let me clarify one point; I'm not copying files from the Mac to the Windows machine, I'm copying from both the Mac and the WinXP machine to a Win2K file server.

I'll check for dropped packets, etc., tomorrow and report back. Thanks again.

[ceenvee]

OK, running ping on the server from both my PC and Mac show no packet loss. Mac reports round-trip min/avg/max as 0.596/0.788/1.191 ms. PC reports all as 0ms (I'm assuming it's rounding down.

Ran netstat -id after copying a file to my Mac: there are no Ierrs or Oerrors or collisions or dropped packets. MTU is set at 1500.

I don't actually know what the network connection is between me and the router. It's possible that it's only 10BaseT, I guess. I can only report that my WinXP box (which is almost certainly connected to the same switch) copies 25MB in about 15 sec. Does that sound like 10BaseT or 100BaseT throughput?

Any ideas on how to proceed would really be appreciated. Thanks.

[rjreed]

Sounds more like 10baseT speed to me. I've also been plagued with slow file trasfer under OS X (10.2.4) - similarly slow speeds as what you describe. I found out that my two G4s, located in the same room, are transferring the files via the internet because they are both connected by ethernet to a hub as is my cable modem. Haven't yet figured out how to prevent this from happening.

[ceenvee]

Yeah, I bet I'm only connected via 10BaseT. Even so, I should still see better performance, since I can get it if I reboot under OS 9 and use DAVE.

Actually, given your description of your setup, I can't imagine your G4 to G4 traffic is going out via the Internet (i.e. your cable modem connection). One way of checking would be to temporarily disconnect your cable modem; you should still be able to connect your two Macs.

I'm going to probably get around to installing a fresh system at some point and will hope that clears things up. In the meantime, hopefully someone else will have some suggestions as to what I can try.

[knowmad]

Hello,
I was reading the thread and I work almost exclusively in a mixed win/mac environment so maybe if i hear more details somethign might click. On the other hand I have been known to completely miss the point, but lets see what we can find.
What is the configuration of the Win2K box? Are you running Appletalk on it? (not as silly as it sounds, you CAN run appletalk on a Win2K server, the reason i bring it up is that you mention DAVE, and my experience with dave is that its great for what it does but if you can use some server native system for getting files from the mac to the server, its better, and while your not having problems with OS9 and DAVE, I am thinking that MAYBE your server des not like either macs or foreign file systems and that soem sort of translation is taking place when you transfer files from OSX, translation that dave is doing under OS9 and that is why you are seeing the slow down. If you are NOT using appletalk under win2k thent he easiest way to check if ti will help is to activate apple talk services on your win2k server, create a new share (only chares created AFTER you activate appletalk services will be visable under appletalk, its a pain) and attach to it using apple talk from OSX and see if that helps the transfer speed. Silly as it sounds, an older file transfer protocal with bugs and legacy code (appletalk) might be faster than the 'new' unix style system used by OSX.)
Do you have any linux or other unix boxes attaching to your Win2K server? if so what are their transfer speeds?
Have you tried switching the ethernet cable the mac is using? I know you said it works fine under 9 with dave but even so.... i mean OSX tends to be more hardware dependant than 9..... I've seen stranger things and that one is an easy oen to test.

anyway, I am done rambling, just some ideas, simple things to test..... if you get a chance and have any more details to share.....

[ceenvee]

Happy to provide more details! And since I'm at work it's easier than trying to remember them when at home...

Quote: What is the configuration of the Win2K box? Are you running Appletalk on it?

Couldn't tell you: the server is (I believe) an NT server, maybe not even Win2K. It's IT's server so I don't know much about it beyond its address. I don't think it's running Appletalk as it doesn't show up as an Appletalk server from my Mac. And since it's IT's server (and since I'm not IT) I wouldn't have the ability to fiddle with it. I know you can run Appletalk services, but I don't think they would be too keen on doing this for just me.

Once I get to a stopping point in some of my work I'll try swapping cables.

Like I said in my original message, transfer times from my WinXP Pro workstation (not a server) to the server are similar to what I get from OS 9 and DAVE.

I guess it might be interesting to try transferring files directly to my WinXP box and see what happens there.

Anyhow, thanks for replying. I appreciate any help in trying to figure out what's going on here.

[voixderaison]

Quote: Originally posted by ceenvee I don't actually know what the network connection is between me and the router. It's possible that it's only 10BaseT, I guess. I can only report that my WinXP box (which is almost certainly connected to the same switch) copies 25MB in about 15 sec. Does that sound like 10BaseT or 100BaseT throughput?

It's unfortunate that you don't seem to have much information about your network connection. This will seriously hamper your troubleshooting effort.

There are a few things you could try before you resort to "installing a fresh system", which probably won't help anyway. If you can ping the target system (and you obviously can, since you can transfer files to it!) and if you haven't been mucking about in weird stuff, then your problem is not likely to be resolved by a re-installation. Mac OS X isn't as succeptible to bit rot as Mac OS 9 was, or as Windows sadly remains. On Mac OS X, re-installation is rarely required, and seldom helpful.

I notice you're running 10.2.4. I would start by applying the Mac OS X 10.2.5 software update which includes fixes for the SMB client.

If that doesn't cause the problem to magically go away, then you might try using a different protocol, say, ftp or scp, to transfer the same test file between your different systems. If it's radically faster to use ftp or scp to move the same file than it is to copy it over the Windows filesharing protocol (SMB/CIFS), then you know it's something about the SMB software, either on the server or the client (probably the client, since you know it tranfers fast to other types of clients). However, since you don't have control over this server, this might not be possible if the server isn't running ftp or an sshd server (which scp talks to).

You might also try an ftp test between a *different* outside server (somewhere on the internet) and your Macintosh, first on Mac OS X, and then on Mac OS 9.

Then, try this test from your Windows XP system to your Macintosh, with both ftp and SMB, for both OSX and OS9. If you find that the transfer speed is roughly the same in all cases for ftp, but slower for SMB on Mac OS X, then you've narrowed the problem down to the SMB client on Mac OS X.

That should give you plenty of stuff to try, and then the problem will either be fixed, or you'll have more test data and a better idea of what to try next. Good luck!

[voixderaison]

Quote: Originally posted by ceenvee I have tried setting the Ethernet port via the ifconfig command. I've tried both full-duplex and half-duplex with the following command sudo ifconfig en0 media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex Neither setting seems to help.

Now for Part II...
Duplex and speed must be matched on both ends of each physical wire on an ethernet LAN. On your network it looks like there would be at least three wires involved. Settings on both ends of a physical wire must match. Suppose your local network has one switch, with two drops (one to each system) and a connection to the router that takes you to the outside world ...

• Switch <--> Mac
• Switch <--> Windows XP
• Switch <-->router

If you are plugged into an "unmanaged" ethernet switch (the switch is "managed" if it's possible to log in to the switch and change "port settings") then normally you should not set the media type via ifconfig on your system, but rather leave it set to "auto". (If a NIC port in a switch or on one your other systems doesn't autonegotiate correctly you should ask the manufacturer to replace it).

If the switch is "managed" then your system needs to match whatever the switch is set to. For the sample network in the list above, you can have different settings on each pair, so long as the ports on both ends of any given wire are set to match:

• auto <--> auto
• half-duplex <--> half-duplex
• full-duplex <--> full-duplex

Performance problems can be caused by mismatched duplex settings, and if this is the cause, ftp and scp will suffer problems when you test the same network loop (e.g. from your Mac to your server). Test in both directions (for ftp, test both a "get" and a "put"), since in the case of a duplex mismatch it's sometimes observed that transfer in one direction may be fast, while in the oppostite direction transfer is slow.

If you want to know more, here is an Apple Knowledge Base search for auto-negotiate

[ceenvee]

I appreciate the help.

I've set my en0 interface back to autoselect. Doesn't help. Just copied a 100meg file to the NT server from my PC and it took a minute. Trying to DL from the NT server to my Mac (running 10.2.5 now) was estimating a copy time of 12 minutes. This is similar to what it was reporting at half-duplex. (Right now under autoselect, it's reporting that it's set at full-duplex).

NT server is not running FTP services... just tried to connect to it and no dice, connection refused. So that's not an option.

Sadly it's sounding like I'm going to have to get IT involved in this, but I know that that's not going to be much of a help, just due to their lack of OS X experience and/or desire to support it.

I think what I'm gonna do right now, also sadly, is reboot under OS 9 to copy this file...

[hayne]

Quote: Just copied a 100meg file to the NT server from my PC and it took a minute. Trying to DL from the NT server from my Mac (running 10.2.5 now) was estimating a copy time of 12 minutes.

Are you copying to the server in both cases? (Your use of "from" in the second sentence makes it unclear.)

One simple thing that you could try is changing the cable that connects your Mac to the network. Ethernet cables do come in various qualities (see http://www.bluemax.net/techtips/netw...TXContents.htm ). It is possible that your cable is not suitable for 100 bps. It is also possible that your cable is simply damaged - you can't tell merely by looking at it.
(added afterwards): I realize that you said you can get the speed you expect when you copy from OS 9, so it would seem unliklely that it is a cable problem, but it's an easy thing to try, and it is possible that the OS X networking code is more sensitive to errors in transmission (going for reliability instead of speed).

[ceenvee]

I swapped cables with the PC workstation in question. (I also changed the wording of that second example to be slightly less confusing.)

The bad news: doesn't change things any. Downloading the 100MB file to my Mac shows up with a 12-15 min estimate. Downloading the same file to my PC takes 1 minute. (Again, this is downloading from an NT server.)

Rebooting my Mac under OS 9 and DLing that file via DAVE takes one minute.

New interesting data point: I had deleted the 100MB file from the NT server, so I copied another one from my Mac to test whether the cable was a factor. Copying that file TO the server FROM my Mac under OS 10.2.5 took half as long (about 5-6 minutes) as it did to copy the same file FROM the server TO my Mac. Interesting. Not sure if it's helpful, but interesting.

Don't know if the same is true (slower uploads to the NT server than downloads) under OS 9 and DAVE, and right now since all my computers are p*ss*ng me off for other reasons I'm not going to experiment with it.

Again, thanks for all the help.

[tlarkin]

hi,

I read through all the posts, and it seems like a very strange problem. I am just curious what services you have running in the background in OS X? I am going to assume you are using the built in ether-net port on your mac. I would first recomend driver updates, but if you are using the built in, I seriously doubt there are any driver updates. I also read through a lot of security changes in os 10.2.5, file sharing was one of them. It did not mention anything about performance, but perhaps the update does somewhat slow down the connection rate. If it works fine in OS 9 then there are probably no hardware issues. Here are some basic steps I would try to get a better idea of how your mac is connecting to your network.

1)Boot up in verbose mode to see what services are running at startup, maybe you have enabled some kind of network service causing the poor performance.

2)create a new test user account, log in under that account and see if the transfter rates change.

3)if possible update the firmware on your router, switch, hub, etc if you can. I have a Linksys router on my home network and when i updated the firmware i noticed my network ran a tad bit faster.

4)and if possible find rom/driver updates for your nic card, if you can update it, it may fix the problem.

Most multitasking operating systems try to limit everything you do to optimize overall system performance. in a windows enviroment you can hack the registry to set it to always use the max bandwidth. this definately sounds like a software issue, there is probably a way to change this from the console, but I am kind of a unix newbie, so i am not sure if there is, or what commands to do it with.

[hayne]

I don't think it is likely to be related to anything running on your OS X machine. It seems far more likely to be a misconfiguration of the Ethernet settings.

One thing that might be helpful in the diagnosis is the utility program "Net Monitor" which is available from http://homepage.mac.com/rominar/net.html
It is shareware but will run for one hour in demo mode which is plenty for our purposes. It shows you in KB/s what your transfer rate is. You could try copying files in the two directions to & from your Mac and see what transfer rates you are getting. With this utility, you should be able to see more easily what is happening without having to copy such big files since it shows the instantaneous transfer rate.

But it might be interesting to know if there is a difference in transfer rate depending on the file size.

I think it is significant that you apparently get a faster transfer rate in copying to the server from your Mac than in the reverse direction.

Another thing:
In looking back over the previous posts I see that you have tried using 'ifconfig' to change your Ethernet parameters. But I don't see anywhere that you have reported what 'ifconfig' tells you is the current state of your Ethernet interfaces (when you run 'ifconfig' without arguments) It would be helpful if you could copy& paste the result of 'ifconfig' for us to see.

[atomictuesday]

I have to agree with tlarkin, this is a software issue and not necessarily a hardware issue. One thing I recommend you do is to open up the classic environment from within OSX and use the dave program. Because exiting packets will need to pass through the MacOSX kernel, then if the speed of the download or upload decreases you could attribute this fault to the MacOSX kernel. If, however, the speed remains fast as in OS9, then you could attribute the fault to the AppleFileServer. Tell me what your results are after trying this.
AtomicTuesday

[babyface]

I was having a problem with my network speeds after upgrading as well. I found the following in the Apple Knowledge Base:

Mac OS X can hold two or more IP addresses at the same time and automatically switch between them. But for optimum performance, you need to set them up properly.

The network interface, or "port," (Ethernet, AirPort, or Modem) that connects to the Internet needs to be first in your port configurations list. This means it is the most preferred port, the one that Mac OS X looks to first when starting up and when connecting to Internet sites. The port (Ethernet or AirPort) that you use to connect to for local sharing should be second. Follow these steps:

1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
2. Choose Network from the View menu.
3. Choose the port you use to physically connect to the Internet from the Show pop-up menu, . See Note 1.
4. Click the TCP/IP tab.
5. This pane should already be set up as directed by your Internet service provider. If it is not, make corrections. For more specific setup information, see technical document 106796, "Mac OS X: Internet and Network Topics (Getting Connected, Troubleshooting)".
6. Choose Network Port Configurations from the Show pop-up menu. See Note 2.
7. If the port you chose in Step 3 is not at the top of the list, drag it to the top. See Note 3.
8. Locate the port you use for local File Sharing.
9. If this port is not second in the port configurations list, drag it to the second position.
10. Choose this port from the Show pop-up menu.
11. Click the TCP/IP tab.
12. Choose Manually from the Configure pop-up menu.
13. Enter these settings:

Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
IP address: 10.0.1.x

The "x" in the address 10.0.1.x represents any number between 1 and 255, for example "10.0.1.2". Just be sure that each computer has a different address. Leave the router and other fields blank.

14. Click Apply Now.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...us%7C169420534