olinuxino-lime2 network speed

[mbosschaert]

I'm puzzled by the network speed of my olinuxino-lime2 revL boards. I have several of these boards, most function as NAS or alike (backup server). On all boards I have olimex image bullseye, latest updates. Network cables are no longer than 1m and most cat6, one cat8. The max network speed I reach with my laptop via wifi is the same as the max indicated by my provider (about 400Mbit/sec). However none of the olinuxino-lime2 boards reach a network speed higher than 130Mbit/sec (connection is 1Gbit/sec Full Duplex as indicated on the router), and one of the boards is extremely unstable, moving between 6Mbit/sec - 80Mbit/sec.

Should it be possible to employ full 1000Mbit/sec at all with these boards and why would one board show such large variation without being under any additional load.

Thanks,
Mike

[LubOlimex]

The Ethernet throughput of each LIME2 board is empirically tested after manufacturing and boards that have lower than 400Mbit/sec throughput are discarded. Based on that you can expect at least 400Mbit/sec. My personal tests show that throughput is at least around 600Mbit/sec.

If you have less than 400Mbit/sec search for the issue in the software or the network hardware and software configuration or cabling.

Are you testing with Olimage Linux?

[mbosschaert]

I've used the latest olimex debian images and kept them up to date. As test I used speedtest-cli. All boards, and the wifi bridge are conneccted to the same router.

For all the boards at both sides of the connection, it is indicated that the link speed selected is 1000Mbit/sec.

@Lub, could you tell which setup you use for testing? I could try to repeat that at my place to distinghuish between hardware and software causing the problem

[LubOlimex]

Ummm, what is WIFI-bridge and is it needed for testing Ethernet throughput. Can you try without it using only wires. We are now trying to determine if LIME2 is at fault for your woes so we have to strip down the hardware setup to the bare minimum. The bare minimum is GbE switch/router, cable and LIME2 board (with some debug medium). Then the best empirical test is to get some big file over the network, then write another big file somewhere in the local network.

But we use iperf in the quality tests.

[mbosschaert]

No, the wifi bridge I referred to was mentioned in my first post, it is used for my laptop which has a max speed of about 400Mbit/sec. So it is not involved in the connection of the olimex boards.

Could there also be specific software which could reduce the throughput? Like on all my boards I run fail2ban.

For your tests, which debian image do you use? I could try to create the same setup as you use for your benchmarking.

[LubOlimex]

Got one board from the shop to test myself and give you exact details.

Board is A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 revision L1. Used base Olimage Linux downloaded from the web.

My hardware setup is the following: a GbE switch, a PC, the LIME2 board, 5V power supply, USB-serial converter between the LIME2 board and the PC; LIME2 connected to the switch directly and also the PC connected to the switch directly. One part of it can be seen in this picture:

https://imgur.com/kBXu8ZM

and you can see iperf result in picture below:

https://imgur.com/caV9hvo

One way and the other way. It is around 700Mbits/s, which is what I remember as typical speed.

[mbosschaert]

WOW, that looks amazing. I'm going to set it up and test it over the coming days. Will report back!

[mbosschaert]

Did some tests. The setup is as follows:

Internet
 |
 Router
  |
  Cisco switch
    |
    4 Olinuxino_lime2 boards with updated debian bullseye
    1 Engenius wifi bridge
      |
      Laptop connected via Wifi

Testresults with iperf:
- 3 out of 4 boards have mutual 400-500Mbit/s communication
- the one board with slower speed has NIC setting of 100Mb/s (ethtool result)
- laptop communicates with 400-500Mbit/s with olimex boards

Testresults with speedtest-cli:
- laptop has download speed up to 400Mbit/s
- olimex boards have mostly less than 50, sometimes up to max 120Mbit/s
 
It looks like over all the hardware has capability to perform at least up to 400-500Mbit/s between all elements of the network (except of one with wrong NIC speed setting) and the internet. In the network settings of the olimex boards something is blocking full speed towards the internet, whereas the hardware would allow it.
As one of the olimex boards has a freshly installed olimex image without any modifications to the settings (only iperf, ethtool and speedtest-cli installed) some generic setting seems to be interfering with optimal network performance.

The consequence of the slow performance is that, for instance, copying files (tried smb, fish, sftp) to and from the boards is sometimes as slow as 300K/sec.

Any help to get this solved is highly appreciated.

[LubOlimex]

It is usually the settings of the switch/router or in your setup can be the WIFI. Try first excluding the WIFI from the test.

What if you connect the laptop with Ethernet cable to the switch instead of WIFI?

Networking problems can be hard to diagnose and solve. I'd personally check all parts of the setup for some quality of assurance settings, also firewall settings. I've seen QoA blocking packets.

[mbosschaert]

The internet connection of the olimex boards is fully wired, the laptop via wifi, so it is to be expected that the boards have higher transfer speeds.


After numerous test with the boards the ceiling of networkspeed to WAN is about 130Mbit/s (so this is all wired). Again, the max for the laptop, where there is an additional wifi step, is about 400Mbit/s (which is the nominal speed by the provider), using the same application to test (speedtest-cli).

I'm not sure where to start with the network. I'm fairly sure the settings of the Cisco SG200 are quit standard, and the settings apply to all ports and connections.
What am I missing?

[LubOlimex]

If it was me I'd start from the settings of the router and the switch, disable QA then test, disable firewall then test, read the documentation of the switch and router and search online for similar reports with those specific tools online, usually it is some checkbox or dropdown menu that brings all down .

If I can't get it working I would try to insulate where exactly the issue comes from try some network analyzing software to see between which two pieces exactly things go wrong. Then focus on those two pieces of hardware.

I would eventually try to test one of the boards in another location maybe with another router or switch.

Also it is good idea use iperf until you got results similar to mine. Anything different might be source of the problem including the software.