[ILUG] Routing problem

[Kevin Philp]

Kevin Philp wrote:
> Kieran Murphy wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Kevin Philp <lists at cybercolloids.net 
>> <mailto:lists at cybercolloids.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     John Allen wrote:
>>
>>         Kevin wrote:
>>
>>             John Allen wrote:
>>
>>                 Kevin wrote:
>>
>>                     I am having problems with my Debian/Lenny
>>                     firewall/routing box. The internet connection runs
>>                     really, really slow. It does work - but its very 
>> slow.
>>
>>                     My internal lan is 192.168.100.*
>>                     My DSL router is 192.168.1.254
>>                     My external nic (wireless) is 192.168.1.1
>>                     My internal nic is 192.168.100.1
>>
>>                     I checked the routing table:
>>
>>                     Kernel IP routing table
>>                     Destination     Gateway         Genmask        
>>                     Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
>>                     192.168.100.0   *               255.255.255.0   U
>>                         0      0        0 eth0
>>                     192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U
>>                         0      0        0 wlan0
>>                     default         192.168.1.254   0.0.0.0         UG
>>                        0      0        0 wlan0
>>
>>                 Your default route is the wireless connection, I'd
>>                 guess the wireless connection is the issue.
>>
>>
>>                     Ifconfig/iwconfig look OK. However if I run
>>                     traceroute I get some odd results:
>>
>>                     traceroute to an internal LAN address completes in
>>                     1 hop
>>
>>                     traceroute to the DSL router 192.168.1.254 from
>>                     the firewall box fails after about 30 hops - it
>>                     should be 1 hop.
>>
>>                     Running tracepath on the DSL box gives me:
>>
>>                     server:/home/kevinphilp# tracepath 192.168.1.254
>>                     1:  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)                    
>>                              1.218ms pmtu 1500
>>                     1:  no reply
>>                     2:  no reply
>>
>>                     On google I get the same
>>                     server:/home/kevinphilp# tracepath www.google.com
>>                     <http://www.google.com>
>>                     1:  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)                    
>>                              0.950ms pmtu 1500
>>                     1:  no reply
>>                     2:  no reply
>>
>>                     Any thoughts welcome
>>
>>                     Kevin.
>>
>>
>>             There does seem to be something wrong with it - the signal
>>             quality is claims to get from the access point is about
>>             50% - which is weak considering the access point is about
>>             15 feet away. Also it constantly backs off the rate from
>>             54M down to 1M - my guess is either the wireless card or
>>             the router are decrepit - does that sound reasonable?
>>
>>         I've had a similar problem with my Laptop (Ubuntu Intrepid),
>>         was getting 1M all the time until very recently, when some
>>         kernel update fixed it. Still rarely get 54Mbps, but between
>>         24 and 36.
>>
>>         I'd direct wire the Deb box to the DSL modem/router (thats
>>         what I've done), so at least the LAN is fast.
>>
>>
>>     I had the box hard wired before and that was fine - but the family
>>     don't like ethernet cables run across hallways! I am surprised I
>>     got away with it as long as I did.
>>
>>     I am looking into the driver issue.
>>
>>     lspci tells me :
>>     00:12.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI
>>     (rev 01)
>>
>>     Actually its a rt2560F chip on an Edimax EW-7128g card
>>
>>     lsmod tells me I have the following installed
>>
>>     rt2500pci              17152  0
>>     rt2x00pci               7680  1 rt2500pci
>>     rt2x00lib              22272  2 rt2500pci,rt2x00pci
>>
>>     My kernel is
>>     Linux server 2.6.26-1-486 #1 Sat Jan 10 17:46:23 UTC 2009 i586
>>     GNU/Linux
>>
>>     So it looks like we have the right driver running.
>>
>>     I actually checked on a similar machine with a lan connection and
>>     I get the same "no reply" from tracepath - so I guess that's
>>     actually not telling me anything. I seem to have got it running
>>     stably at 2M - I will tweak it up slowly and see what happens.
>>
>>  
>> Are you 100% Certain that your  Wireless connection is working?
>> You mention that you're using WPA. Perhaps your wpa_supplicant isn't 
>> doing what its supposed to be doing.
>> Try testing this without WPA.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Kieran..
>>
> 100% sure - the only route to the internet is via the wireless nic on 
> the router box - the lan cable has been removed - the hallway is 
> clear. It does work - I can browse the internet, run aptitude update - 
> but the connection is just slow. I had a similar problem a while back 
> when one of the telephone filters was removed and connection speeds 
> dropped by about 10 fold.
>
> I ran a test downloading a large file from heanet. On my Eircom 
> connection at work I got full speed ~270k at home it levelled out at 
> 70k - so I have a connection, its just poor. That was the same file 
> from the same server downloaded just a few minutes apart.
>
> I have actually just read an article on cordless phones causing 
> problems - and we have just got some new cordless phones!! I will 
> report back on what I find.
>
>
> Kevin.

As Brendan commented - cordless phones make no difference - my fault for 
reading American websites and thinking what they say applies to Europe!

I am coming to the conclusion its a driver issue. I am currently using 
the rt2500pci driver as supplied in the Lenny kernel. So I am not sure 
where to go from here - I will try to file a question on the 
serialmonkey website.