I'm having a very strange problem that I'm hoping someone can help me with.

In short, I have a Linux box working as a fileserver for my LAN. My Windows Vista and Windows 7 clients can connect and download from the server fine at about 8MB/sec, but uploading is painfully slow - less than 200k/sec.

I've been struggling with this problem for a long while now, and can't seem to pinpoint the cause.

Here's my setup:
My server is connected directly to the internet on eth0. Connected to eth1 on the LAN side is a wireless router working in "hub" mode - it doesn't handle any address assignment even to wireless clients. All DHCP and NAT services are handled by the server. All other computers inside the network are connected to the router, either wirelessly or through cat5 cabling.


Some of my tests and issues I've already ruled out:

-Other computers on the network running XP and Linux can transfer to/from the server without issue.

-Since this was the first time I'd seen this issue, my first theory was a a client-side hardware/driver problem on the Windows 7 box. However, using different drivers doesn't help. Installing XP or Linux on the same hardware does not reproduce the issue. Furthermore, if I install Vista/7 on other computers that worked fine with XP, they exhibit the same problem. Whatever it is, this problem is specific to Vista/7.

-My second thought was that it might be a configuration problem with Samba. However the issue occurs with FTP and file transfers over SSH. Furthermore, it occurs whether I connect to the IP address of the server's internal (eth1) or external (eth0) interface.

-I thought Windows 7 might be more sensitive to cabling issues. But, if I connect a Vista/7 box directly to eth1 on the server using known good cables, it produces the same result. Needless to say, swapping different cables/hubs/ports elsewhere in the network path didn't do me any good.

-I thought it might be an incompatibility in the software network layers between Vista/7 and Linux, but transfers to/from other computers in the network - XP, Vista/7, and Linux - work fine.

-I thought it might be some kind of strange firmware/driver quirk on the server's network card sending signals Vista/7 didn't like, but trying different cards doesn't help.

-At this point, I'm stumped. I figure it might be something wrong with the way Vista/7 is initiating sends. To test this, I set up a network share on 7 and used the server to pull files from it. It worked fine.

-Just when I think I'm on to something, I discover that Vista/7 transfers over a WIRELESS connection work just fine!


So, as it stands, the problem ONLY occurs when Vista/7 (other OSes work fine) initiates an upload (downloads are fine) to the Linux server (other linux boxes are fine) over ethernet connections (wireless is fine).

All of this data points squarely to an unidentified unique property in the server's software configuration that's resulting in slow transfers with Vista/7.

As I see it, the possibly relevant differences between my server and the other Linux boxes I tested are:
The server is acting as a NAT gateway to the internet, providing the network's DNS/DHCP/WINS services, running a hardened kernel, and is loosely firewalled. However, I do not believe that any of these are the problem. If they were, other computers on the network would be having problems, instead of just the Vista/7 boxes. It could be something unique in the way that Vista/7 is handling the server's configuration, but the fact that wireless transfers work fine throws a kink in that theory. I can take a Vista laptop, disable Ethernet, and transfer just fine. Then enable Ethernet and disable wireless, and the transfer gets all gummed up. Then I enable both and look at both network configurations side-by-side and see no relevant difference.

The only thing I can think of is that there might be a fundamental design flaw in vista/7 network stack that the wireless router is somehow filtering out, or a flaw exclusive to the ethernet stack, but as V/7 works fine in all other scenarios, these possibilities seem really far-fetched to me.


I've Googled all over the place for solutions, but I haven't found anything that helped. If anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd be appreciative.

Hello and welcome to LinuxQuestions,

I'm encountering the same problem with my setup at home. All works fine except Windows 7 on a cabled network. Wireless as you stated works perfectly in communicating with all other machines on my home network. I assume that's it's another Mickey$oft issue that's yet to be resolved.

The only thing I can advice you is to switch all to Linux like I'm doing at this moment. All my problems seem to disappear miraculously with every Window$ install that goes out the door. And for the problems I encounter with Linux there's for certain someone here that can help.

Sorry if it's not the help or advice you would like to hear, but I haven't found a solution for that problem either. If you do, just out of interest I'd like to hear it too.

Kind regards,

Eric

Just to rule out any layer 1 issues, does ifconfig show any errors? Does performance monitor show any errors?

On my Windows 7 laptop ifconfig gives no errors whatsoever, the only thing is that I seem to loose a lot of packets when pinging, only when connected with W7 by cable. On wireless or cable connection with other OS [Ubuntu, Debian, WinXP], all connected to one and the same router I loose no packets at all. Wireless on Windows7 as stated before works perfect.

Strange, isn't it? But, since this is a Window$ thing, and I'm gradually moving everything to Linux I'm not giving it any attention or thought.

Kind regards,

Eric

EDIT> of course ifconfig on Window$ is ipconfig, neither give errors on respective OS

the problem is with the smb configuration.. i was looking at something similar, but i use scp to do file transfers, and for me its slow as well. the solutions ive found have all been related to smb and its config..

remember google is your friend:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=...d42ee1c422ad25

I fixed the problem.

Going with Suncoast's lead, ifconfig on the server showed TX errors popping up like crazy. I re-checked all my cables and tried to isolate the system that was causing it, but nothing seemed to work. So, I thought it might be a bad network card on the server, and I switched around eth0 and eth1 in udev. Sure enough, the errors were popping up on the same card, so I knew they weren't being generated by something on the LAN. I physically replaced the faulty card with an old 3c905B, and now everything is running error-free and Vista/7 transfers are working like they should.

I know that I once tried a different card in the past, but since I didn't think to check for errors in ifconfig, I might have swapped it with a different card with the same problem. I still, for the life of me, cannot understand why Windows V/7 was the only operating system seeing any symptoms, and only under such strange, specific conditions. V/7 must be an exceptionally touchy OS.

Anyway, thanks for your help. If I'd come here sooner I probably could have saved a lot of headache.

Ifconfig on Linux will show errors. Windows ipconfig will not. And IF your Windows NIC driver supports error reporting, you can only list the errors through Performance Monitor, which opens Systems Monitor.(Go figure....)

Your Network card may be fine. Use ethtool or mii-tool to look at or change your Duplex settings to full duplex. If that fixes the problem, you will need to add an ethtool command to your system startup script so it forces full duplex right at boot time. This would be caused by an incorrect handling of the protocol that runs when the NIC driver is negotiating it's connection parameters with the switch.