[ILUG] PPP link like treacle

[Dermot McGahon]

Hi,

I am using Debian 2.2r0, kernel 2.2.17 and I'm having problems with
PPP. Using a Creative Modem Blaster and connecting to Surf No Limits I
get very low bandwidth and lots of stalls although it happens with
other ISPs, I haven't tried a different modem but the modem works well
under windows. For example, Netscape is currently reporting 38
bytes/sec. It varies from this up 300/400 bytes/sec. Problem is not
just with http, retriving mail with POP3 also gives frequent stalls.

I was speaking to a friend at the weekend who thinks it may be a bug
in later 2.2 series kernels as he has experienced the same symptoms
but no such problems with say 2.2.5 or 2.4.0testX. Then again, it may
not be.

I've turned on debugging for PPP and although that gives lots of
information on the LCP/IPCP interactions while the link is being set
up it doesn't seem to report anything about frame errors, stalls or
anything else like that.

I've included output from netstat -i and inconfig -i ppp0 which show
that there are a high percentage of receive errors. I'm not sure how
to proceed from here, any suggestions would be very welcomed.

Thanks,

Dermot.
--

rakanishu:/var/log# ifconfig -i ppp0
ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  
          inet addr:194.145.130.102  P-t-P:194.145.128.244  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1039 errors:195 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:195
          TX packets:1115 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:10 

rakanishu:/var/log# ping 194.145.128.244
PING 194.145.128.244 (194.145.128.244): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=160.3 ms
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=160.0 ms
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=140.0 ms
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=130.0 ms
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=130.0 ms
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=140.0 ms
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=130.0 ms
64 bytes from 194.145.128.244: icmp_seq=7 ttl=255 time=130.0 ms

--- 194.145.128.244 ping statistics ---
8 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 130.0/140.0/160.3 ms
rakanishu:/var/log# netstat -i
Kernel Interface table
Iface   MTU Met    RX-OK RX-ERR RX-DRP RX-OVR    TX-OK TX-ERR TX-DRP TX-OVR Flg
lo     3924   0     2004      0      0      0     2004      0      0      0 LRU
ppp0   1500   0     1048    196      0      0     1124      0      0      0 OPRU
rakanishu:/var/log# uname -a
Linux rakanishu 2.2.17 #9 Fri Aug 4 15:41:19 IST 2000 i686 unknown
rakanishu:/var/log#