Hello all,
I am using a linuxbox as one of my system's router ( I work on an ISP ),
with the following specs :
- PIII 1 Ghz
- 2.4.5 cbq-enabled kernel
- eth0 3com 905B , eth1 Intel Etherpro 100
- 256 MB Ram
The traffic usually peaks at 6 Mbit/sec . Until here, it's all OK. I am very
satisfied with this router, and I can place cbq's, filters, etc. etc.
Recently we have been adding some new customers behind that router, and the
traffic began to grow. To my surprise, when the router reachs certain output
limit ( around 810 kBytes/sec or 6'5 Mbit/sec ) the output remains at that
level *except* when it begins to decrease again. Looks like to me as if the
router box couldn't handle _more_ than 6'5 mbit/sec , uh... I know that
cannot be so, since the system use doesn't go beyond 9% as show by the "top"
command, and both NICs are good ones... I cannot believe the bottleneck is
to be in the routing code.
But, in order to clarify the situation, I'd need your opinions about this
issue, which would help me greatly. My real bets for the problem are :
a) our carrier is limiting the upstream bandwith to our router, so no more
external users can reach our webs provided a certain limit has been reached
( at 810 kBytes/sec , incoming traffic goes as high as 112 kBytes/sec .
Perhaps they are limiting us the incoming traffic.
b) our web servers cannot output more bytes that those. For testing this, I
temporaly took down one web server. Inmediately, the other went 100
kBytes/sec up. So they CAN have more output, individually. So my problem is
to be on the router, or with my carrier and my upstream bandwidth.
I am very annoyed with this, since I *do* believe that 2.4 kernel can handle
MUCH more that a miserable 6'5 mbit/sec. Where could the problem be ? Your
opinions are really welcome...
Many thanks in advance.
Jose Miguel Varet
Tech. Dept. Chief
ATT, S.L.
