[SOLVED] Internet so slow; can't connect to web.

chiyo_0 · 01-08-2013, 12:33 AM

Hello everyone! This is my first post here so please bear with me...

I have just recently inherited a networked group of Slackware computers. I don't know enough to run these computers and I feel overwhelmed. Currently I am having issues with slow internet connection in the browser but from the ping to the server I can see that there is still a connection and it's fast. Yet, in the browser it doesn't even make a connection it just keeps loading. What does this mean and what can I do? I have 4 people harping on my to fix this problem and I just don't know where to go from here. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much !

Info: Server computer: Slackware 11 (something... it's kinda old)
U-verse is our ISP

gdejonge · 01-08-2013, 01:54 AM

If you ping the server do you use its ip-address or its domain-name. Please try both and post the results.

Mad-Halfling · 01-09-2013, 05:24 AM

A few things you could try.
Launch your browser and check the proxy settings, just in case there's something weird there.
Try accessing a broadband speed checker from your browser.
Attach another device to your network (e.g. a smartphone or tablet), if you can, and try running speed tests on there - that should give you an idea of whether it's your Slackware machines or an underlying problem with your network or ISP.
This may, or may not work, depending on their setup, but try accessing your ISP's website - if that's on their internal network you may find it's quick if the problem is with your ISP's outgoing connection.
What server are you pinging? Try 8.8.8.8 - that's one of the Google servers and would be a good measure to a known, external server. Also try traceroute 8.8.8.8 and see if there's any visible bottleneck.

LeoPap · 01-09-2013, 08:55 AM

I think that the best way to start your troubleshooting is using the traceroute command.

As Mad-Halfling said, use traceroute 8.8.8.8 and paste the results here.

chiyo_0 · 01-09-2013, 06:44 PM

Since my internet is dead I will take a picture with my phoned the results of these things. So far though my results have been in the 0.000 Ms range(Lol) and I'm not sure what that means. I've also found some errors in the hard drive when I tried to shut down the server softly. I know this in and of it self is an issue but it doesn't have anything to do with internet correct? BTW sorry about slow responses, I'm using my phone

chiyo_0 · 01-09-2013, 06:52 PM

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...109_161805.jpg

chiyo_0 · 01-09-2013, 11:04 PM

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...109_200852.jpg

this is from my traceroute of 8.8.8.8
is this a normal result?

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...109_173148.jpg

this one is of my ping to google as well. as you can see, it's waaay to slow to ever connect. even the browser says the connection timed out.

LeoPap · 01-10-2013, 02:12 AM

What about the other pc on the same network? Are they facing slow internet connection too or only your server is facing internet connetction problems?

Mad-Halfling · 01-10-2013, 04:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiyo_0

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...109_200852.jpg

this is from my traceroute of 8.8.8.8
is this a normal result?

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...109_173148.jpg

this one is of my ping to google as well. as you can see, it's waaay to slow to ever connect. even the browser says the connection timed out.

What is IP address 99.124.161.70 - I'm guessing it's your router on the network? Though the IP address seems a little odd, as it's not one in the normal private ranges (I will return to this, later)? If this is your router, then it rather looks like the issue starts between your router and your ISP. Most routers have a web interface, so try pointing a browser on your network at http://99.124.161.70 or https://99.124.161.70 and see if that loads a web page, and if so, if it's quick. If it is quick, I suspect that the problem may not be on your internal network, but rather either on your broadband connection or at your ISP - I would contact them to check this - they can run diagnostics on your line and see if there's a problem there.

Alternatively, this could be a USB router hanging directly off your server. If this is the case, and you're running traceroute from your server, can you please also show us a traceroute from a workstation on the network - I'm guessing it will be quick to your server and then slow after that, which also implies either a problem with your broadband connection, or a problem at your ISP. In this case, one last test you may also be able to do is to check (if it is a server acting as the network gateway) to see if Apache is installed (note that it may be installed, but not running by default) on the server. If so, fire it up and see how the client machines go connecting to its web pages (note that you may also have to open up port 80, temporarily, on the firewall to do this). Again, if it runs fine then it points to a broadband/ISP problem.

If you do go to your ISP, go armed with these screenshots of traceroutes and pings, both to your internal servers and externally, so that you can demonstrate to them that it's not a problem with your internal network (depending on how helpful they are, they may try to fob you off or assume that it's your network at fault) and where the latency starts to creep in. The more information you can give them from the start, the more competent you look and also the easier it makes it for them to know where to start looking (plus you may, if applicable, get your call escalated up from front-line support, more quickly)

chiyo_0 · 01-10-2013, 05:46 PM

@Mad-halfling,
I will attempt the things you have suggested and post picture results as i have been doing. thank you so much for helping me.

i do suspect that it is a router and/or ISP problem because of recent observed periods of fast internet connections between the late evening hours. i fear though that because the server is the other network computers gateway to outside world that it could be hacked? is this a possiblity? i know linux is known for very strong firewalls if done correctly....

lleb · 01-10-2013, 06:10 PM

an other tool you might consider testing the connection with is mtr run as root. run that to 8.8.8.8 or linuxquestions.org.

you can also run mtr -n (this will not perform any name resolution) and will provide a simular response.

ex:

Code:

                                        My traceroute  [v0.75]
centos.ssmahome (0.0.0.0)                                                    Thu Jan 10 15:04:24 2013
Resolver error: No error returned but no answers given. of fields   quit
                                                             Packets               Pings
 Host                                                      Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. ssmahomeipcop.ssmahome.local                            0.0%    12    0.3   0.3   0.2   0.4   0.1
 2. 10.108.240.1                                            0.0%    12    7.6   8.7   5.7  16.1   2.7
 3. ten0-1-0-7.orld53-ser2.bhn.net                          0.0%    12   10.7   9.3   7.2  13.9   1.8
 4. ten0-10-0-9.orld71-car2.bhn.net                         0.0%    12   15.9  13.7   8.5  17.9   2.7
 5. hun0-6-0-0.orld71-cbr3.bhn.net                          0.0%    12   10.6  13.2   6.9  23.6   5.2
 6. xe-11-0-0.bar1.Orlando1.Level3.net                      0.0%    12   11.3  10.2   7.9  18.8   3.1
 7. ae-0-11.bar2.Orlando1.Level3.net                        0.0%    12    8.6  10.8   7.8  28.9   6.0
 8. ae-5-5.ebr2.Miami1.Level3.net                           0.0%    11   22.0  17.5  13.7  27.2   4.2
 9. ae-2-52.edge1.Miami2.Level3.net                         0.0%    11   18.2  16.7  14.0  24.4   2.8
10. te2-5.bbr01.tm01.mia01.networklayer.com                 0.0%    11   52.1  38.3  34.8  52.1   5.0
11. ae7.bbr01.tm01.mia01.networklayer.com                   0.0%    11   34.8  36.8  33.7  42.3   2.7
12. ae1.bbr01.sr02.hou02.networklayer.com                   0.0%    11   52.2  43.8  39.2  58.3   6.9
13. ae3.bbr01.eq01.dal03.networklayer.com                   0.0%    11   39.0  42.0  37.6  53.9   6.2
14. ae0.dar01.sr01.dal01.networklayer.com                   0.0%    11   37.5  38.5  35.8  42.8   2.0
15. po1.fcr02.sr04.dal01.networklayer.com                   0.0%    11   41.2  42.0  37.6  53.8   5.5
16. www.linuxquestions.org                                  0.0%    11   37.8  38.6  36.6  41.2   1.6

and when i run the same trace to your first IP i get the following results:

Code:

                                        My traceroute  [v0.75]
centos.ssmahome (0.0.0.0)                                                    Thu Jan 10 15:05:56 2013
Resolver error: No error returned but no answers given. of fields   quit
                                                             Packets               Pings
 Host                                                      Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. ssmahomeipcop.ssmahome.local                            0.0%    13    0.3   0.3   0.2   0.4   0.1
 2. 10.108.240.1                                            0.0%    13    8.1  10.0   6.8  18.6   3.6
 3. ten0-1-0-7.orld53-ser2.bhn.net                          0.0%    13   10.1   9.8   5.5  27.6   5.6
 4. ten0-15-0-2.orld71-car2.bhn.net                         0.0%    13   21.6  16.4   7.8  21.6   3.9
 5. hun0-7-0-0.orld71-cbr3.bhn.net                          0.0%    13   14.5  12.1   9.3  15.4   1.9
 6. ae-3-10.cr1.atl20.tbone.rr.com                          0.0%    13   15.8  17.0  15.6  19.3   1.2
 7. 107.14.19.38                                            0.0%    13   22.6  21.0  18.0  26.0   2.7
 8. ae-1-0.pr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com                           0.0%    13   17.4  16.8  15.2  18.0   0.8
 9. 216.156.108.101.ptr.us.xo.net                           0.0%    13   16.9  24.0  15.1 106.5  24.9
10. 67.111.23.90.ptr.us.xo.net                              0.0%    13   17.4  20.4  17.4  41.2   6.6
11. cr1.attga.ip.att.net                                    0.0%    13   74.5  80.0  72.2 121.3  14.2
12. cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net                                    0.0%    13   72.7  73.4  70.3  84.5   3.6
13. cr2.la2ca.ip.att.net                                    0.0%    13   72.9  71.7  69.1  73.3   1.4
14. 12.123.132.213                                          0.0%    12   70.7  72.8  70.7  75.3   1.2
15. ???
16. ???
17. ???
18. 75.20.0.67                                              9.1%    12   81.3 114.6  79.1 175.1  38.2
19. ???

It is NOT a bad thing to see those ??? lines, just means they are not responding to pings. not a bad thing at all. I do wnat you to notice the following after running mtr for a short bit i am seeing MASSIVE packet loss on your end:

Code:

16. 75.20.0.176                                            97.1%    71   78.8  77.3  75.7  78.8   2.2
17. 75.20.0.101                                            98.6%    71   75.0  75.0  75.0  75.0   0.0
18. 75.20.0.67                                             72.9%    71   72.9  95.2  71.5 175.1  34.3
19. ???

That kind of packet loss is either from your router or your ISP directly. either way they will have to resolve the issue for you.

chiyo_0 · 01-11-2013, 03:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lleb

That kind of packet loss is either from your router or your ISP directly. either way they will have to resolve the issue for you.

So is the mystery solved then? I'm going to try and call them tomorrow and explain the situation and describe what actions I've taken to assess the problem. Hopefully it can all be fixed soon... Thank you for your help!! You guys rock