IPFire slow at download

Hardware Single Board Computers
1

Dear all,

After a harware failure I moved my IPFire to a new hardware (just by dd the SDD to the new one and adjustung the network setup)
The new system is a Protectli “The VAUL” FW4C-0-4-32, which should be fine for IPFire according to their website.

I’m now facing a very slow download rate of 70Mbit/s (my connetion is a Telekom 250/40 VDSL). The upload is fine with 40Mbit.

I’m wodering wether the onboard NIC are compatible with IPFIRE.

I have checked the following:

root@ipfire ~]# lspci | grep -ie network -ie ethernet -ie wireless
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V (rev 03)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V (rev 03)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V (rev 03)
[root@ipfire ~]# lspci -nn -v -s 01:00.0
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:15f3] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:0000]
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
	Memory at 81800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
	Memory at 81900000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable+ 64bit+
	Capabilities: [70] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=5 Masked-
	Capabilities: [a0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 64-62-66-ff-ff-21-a3-07
	Capabilities: [1c0] Latency Tolerance Reporting
	Capabilities: [1f0] Precision Time Measurement
	Capabilities: [1e0] L1 PM Substates
	Kernel driver in use: igc
	Kernel modules: igc

As a modem I have a VIGOR 165 ehich is unchanged. The VIGOR is stating in the dashboard
" DSL Connected : Down Stream : 292016Kbps / Up Stream : 42462Kbps Vectoring Active"
for the capacity of the line

Is the NIC compatible with IPFire? The hardware compatibilty list is not mentioning this NIC
https://wiki.ipfire.org/hardware/networking
only “Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V (rev 04)”

My system is: IPFire 2.27 (x86_64) - Core-Update 178

Any ideas, why the download rate is so slow?

2

Maybe you can test the interfaces using iperf3. You could use another machine with IPFire connected to the red interface of Protectl and a laptop in the green side and do a more complete test. You would essentially be setting up a chain where you have a laptop connected to the Protectli machine (acting as a firewall), which in turn is connected to another IPFire machine serving as a DHCP server/gateway, and finally connecting to another laptop.

3

I made a quick check with iperf3 on the IPFire and a laptop connected to the green and blue.
Here I got approc 900Mbit rate, so that IPfire has the correct drivers for the NIC. The chain you suggested is much more complicated to set up.

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4

It appears the issue is not directly related to the Ethernet card and its drivers, but rather due to a bottleneck occurring elsewhere in the system. Often, the CPU or the interplay between the network card, motherboard, and CPU can be the sources of this bottleneck.

A multi-queue CPU can help mitigate this by distributing the computational load across multiple cores, thereby parallelizing the workload if the card supports this feature (Multi-Queue" or “Receive Side Scaling (RSS)” feature). I do not know if I226-V has this feature. A stress test with iperf from the green to the red would be the way check whether the machine can handle a high traffic load. I realize it’s not easy to assemble this system. If you mange to lean more, please keep the community informed (if you can).

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5

I overlooked this detail earlier. Have you confirmed that the new hardware is functioning correctly? Utilizing a kernel installation configured for different hardware might not be reliable.

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6

The booting process, which I can monitor on the console looks pretty fine, no errors occur.
I have now checkrd, that this behauvior is clearly not on the ISP side. I configured the Vigor into the router-mode and I got 260/40 Mbit download/upload rate. This is what the ISP is telling me.
Moving back to the modem mode the download rate is again very poor. I think I will now make a backup only from the configuartion and then start with a new installation.
Protecli has a page about IPfire https://kb.protectli.com/kb/how-to-install-ipfire-on-the-vault/?intsrc=eu, so it should work. Also the system requirements are fulfilled. https://wiki.ipfire.org/hardware/requirements

7

I have had a couple of Protectli’s over the years running IPF and I’ve been very happy with this appliance.

Interestingly the FW4C is not shown as tested for IPF. See this page: https://kb.protectli.com/kb/how-to-install-ipfire-on-the-vault/?intsrc=eu

I have found the techs at Protectli to be very helpful … you might like to double check with them.

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8

According to the product page… the CPU is Intel Pentium J3710.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2784vs1105/Intel-Pentium-J3710-vs-Intel-Pentium-E6600
And that’s not the snappiest of the CPU provided by Santa Clara, however should run “just fine” IPfire.

On network adapter side, i225-V was not the brightest ethernet product from intel, and needed a lot of tweaking on driver side, still lacking of performances; i226V works plain better and scale much more efficiently.

Other persons had similar issues on i225V…

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9

If your ISP still use PPPoE the CPU may be the bottlenek because every packet needs en/decapsulated at send/recieve on red. Most ISP change with higher speeds to DHCP or support both.

Also offload features like TSO and GRO may be contraproductive on the firewall because they resort tcp packets to optimize the cpu load for desktop apps but this increase the latency if this was done on middleboxes which result im slowdown of single streams.

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10

I solved it with a new installation from the scratch - Now its fine.
(When I restored the backup file the slow download rate comes back, thats its unfortunate when changing the hardware)
Thank’s all for the hints

11

Curious - how big is the backup file?

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12

curious II both installation were x86-64?

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