We've been running a Linux 2.4.19 firewall for about a year and a half now, using Netfilter and proxyarp so that devices on both side of the firewall can be on the same subnet. We run a wireless network, using wireless bridges, so these should be largely invisible to the Linux box. Within the last four months we have suspected there is a slow down. I've upgraded to 2.4.21 and upgraded netfilter/iptables to 1.2.8, to no effect. Just to test things out, I grabbed an old 10mbit hub so that I could see performance locally, and not just through the wireless network. Everything seemed to be going fine (around 1050kbs on an FTP transfer), but I discovered that while that download was going on, no other traffic, including 32 byte pings, would go through. Now I realize that hubs are only half-duplex, but I don't ever recall this situation, and it seems to indicate a problem with the Linux firewall. One bad thing is that I'm running some Realtek cards (I know I shouldn't but they've worked for over a year). Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions? -- Aaron Clausen techlists@xxxxxxxxxxx
