Re: Slow ral(4) 802.11b in hostap mode?

[Kevin Cheng]

Hi,

We have great performance by using these two PCI cards while on 11g mode.

ral0 at pci1 dev 13 function 0 "Ralink RT2561S" rev 0x00: irq 5, address
00:0e:8e:04:8b:08
ral0: MAC/BBP RT2561C, RF RT2527
ral0 at pci1 dev 15 function 0 "Ralink RT2561" rev 0x00: irq 11, address
00:05:9e:84:9c:c8
ral0: MAC/BBP RT2561C, RF RT2527

RT2560 is becoming old now.

Kevin

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> On Behalf Of Damon McMahon
> Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2007 9:42 AM
> To: misc list
> Subject: Re: Slow ral(4) 802.11b in hostap mode?
> 
> Thanks for the responses from Peter and others.
> 
> The CAVEAT seems only to apply to the USB variant - mine is a PCI:
> 
> # dmesg| grep ral0
> ral0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0 "Ralink RT2560" rev 0x01: irq 5,  
> address 00:13:d3:6a:bb:9d
> ral0: MAC/BBP RT2560 (rev 0x04), RF RT2525
> 
> I've tried setting specific media types rather than 
> autoselect but if  
> anything this reduces throughput. I also have an aftermarket high- 
> gain antenna fitted. Are there any other suggestions readers 
> can offer?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Damon
> 
> 
> On 20/09/2007, at 1:09 AM, Peter N. M. Hansteen wrote:
> 
> > Damon McMahon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> >> Also, while top(1) shows that the CPU is 95% idle the ssh terminal
> >> seems very sluggish when the ral(4) connection is maxed out, even
> >> when it's another host that's maxing it out (i.e. not the host on
> >> which the ssh client is operating).
> >
> > It's sort of a known problem I'm afraid. it sounds like you're stuck
> > on a suboptimal mode, and ral doesn't really know how to fix
> > that. It's under CAVEATS at the end of the ral(4) man page.
> >
> > -- 
> > Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 
> implementation team
> > http://bsdly.blogspot.com/ http://www.datadok.no/ 
> http://www.nuug.no/
> > "Remember to set the evil bit on all malicious network traffic"
> > delilah spamd[29949]: 85.152.224.147: disconnected after 42673  
> > seconds.

Re: Slow ral(4) 802.11b in hostap mode?

[Damon McMahon]

Thanks for the responses from Peter and others.

The CAVEAT seems only to apply to the USB variant - mine is a PCI:

# dmesg| grep ral0
ral0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0 "Ralink RT2560" rev 0x01: irq 5,  
address 00:13:d3:6a:bb:9d

ral0: MAC/BBP RT2560 (rev 0x04), RF RT2525

I've tried setting specific media types rather than autoselect but if  
anything this reduces throughput. I also have an aftermarket high- 
gain antenna fitted. Are there any other suggestions readers can offer?


Thanks in advance,
Damon


On 20/09/2007, at 1:09 AM, Peter N. M. Hansteen wrote:


Damon McMahon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:


Also, while top(1) shows that the CPU is 95% idle the ssh terminal
seems very sluggish when the ral(4) connection is maxed out, even
when it's another host that's maxing it out (i.e. not the host on
which the ssh client is operating).


It's sort of a known problem I'm afraid. it sounds like you're stuck
on a suboptimal mode, and ral doesn't really know how to fix
that. It's under CAVEATS at the end of the ral(4) man page.

--
Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 implementation team
http://bsdly.blogspot.com/ http://www.datadok.no/ http://www.nuug.no/
"Remember to set the evil bit on all malicious network traffic"
delilah spamd[29949]: 85.152.224.147: disconnected after 42673  
seconds.

Re: Slow ral(4) 802.11b in hostap mode?

[Jurjen Oskam]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 12:07:02AM +0930, Damon McMahon wrote:

> I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this further, but any advice would  
> be appreciated.

As I've just mentioned, I experienced poor performance on a ral-based
card in hostap mode, until I connected a high-quality antenna on a
proper location. After that, it worked great.
-- 
Jurjen Oskam

Savage's Law of Expediency:
You want it bad, you'll get it bad.

Re: Slow ral(4) 802.11b in hostap mode?

[Peter N. M. Hansteen]

Damon McMahon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Also, while top(1) shows that the CPU is 95% idle the ssh terminal
> seems very sluggish when the ral(4) connection is maxed out, even
> when it's another host that's maxing it out (i.e. not the host on
> which the ssh client is operating).

It's sort of a known problem I'm afraid. it sounds like you're stuck
on a suboptimal mode, and ral doesn't really know how to fix
that. It's under CAVEATS at the end of the ral(4) man page.

-- 
Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 implementation team
http://bsdly.blogspot.com/ http://www.datadok.no/ http://www.nuug.no/
"Remember to set the evil bit on all malicious network traffic"
delilah spamd[29949]: 85.152.224.147: disconnected after 42673 seconds.

Slow ral(4) 802.11b in hostap mode?

[Damon McMahon]

Greetings,

My 4.1/i386 box is a wireless access point using ral(4) in 802.11b  
hostap mode and secured by IPsec. On both MacOS X and WinXP clients I  
have noted consistent wifi speeds maxing out in the low 70+ KBps  
range whereas on the OpenBSD box itself a download speed over its  
pppoe(4) connection in the low 150+ KBps is achieved - hence it  
appears ral(4) is where the bottleneck is.


Also, while top(1) shows that the CPU is 95% idle the ssh terminal  
seems very sluggish when the ral(4) connection is maxed out, even  
when it's another host that's maxing it out (i.e. not the host on  
which the ssh client is operating).


I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this further, but any advice would  
be appreciated.


# dmesg
OpenBSD 4.1 (GENERIC) #0: Sat May 26 01:30:55 CST 2007
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: Intel Pentium III ("GenuineIntel" 686-class, 512KB L2 cache)  
499 MHz
cpu0:  
FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36, 
MMX,FXSR,SSE

real mem  = 200773632 (196068K)
avail mem = 175529984 (171416K)
using 2481 buffers containing 10162176 bytes (9924K) of memory
mainbus0 (root)
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 07/11/02, BIOS32 rev. 0 @  
0xfd7b1, SMBIOS rev. 2.3 @ 0xf8386 (38 entries)

bios0: IBM 656345A
apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2
apm0: AC on, battery charge unknown
apm0: flags 30102 dobusy 0 doidle 1
pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.1 @ 0xf/0x1
pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing Table rev 1.0 @ 0xf1e60/160 (8 entries)
pcibios0: PCI Interrupt Router at 000:02:0 ("VIA VT82C596A ISA" rev  
0x00)

pcibios0: PCI bus #1 is the last bus
bios0: ROM list: 0xc/0xa000 0xca000/0x1000
acpi at mainbus0 not configured
cpu0 at mainbus0
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (no bios)
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 "VIA VT82C691 PCI" rev 0x82
ppb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 "VIA VT82C598 AGP" rev 0x00
pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "S3 Savage 4" rev 0x03
wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
pcib0 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "VIA VT82C596A ISA" rev 0x12
pciide0 at pci0 dev 2 function 1 "VIA VT82C571 IDE" rev 0x06: ATA66,  
channel 0 configured to compatibility, channel 1 configured to  
compatibility

wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: 
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 12949MB, 26520480 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 4
atapiscsi0 at pciide0 channel 1 drive 0
scsibus0 at atapiscsi0: 2 targets
cd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0:  SCSI0 5/ 
cdrom removable

cd0(pciide0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2
uhci0 at pci0 dev 2 function 2 "VIA VT83C572 USB" rev 0x08: irq 10
usb0 at uhci0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0 at usb0
uhub0: VIA UHCI root hub, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
"VIA VT82C596 Power" rev 0x20 at pci0 dev 2 function 3 not configured
fxp0 at pci0 dev 14 function 0 "Intel 8255x" rev 0x08, i82559: irq 9,  
address 00:04:ac:8b:51:11

inphy0 at fxp0 phy 1: i82555 10/100 PHY, rev. 4
ral0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0 "Ralink RT2560" rev 0x01: irq 5,  
address 00:13:d3:6a:bb:9d

ral0: MAC/BBP RT2560 (rev 0x04), RF RT2525
esa0 at pci0 dev 18 function 0 "ESS ES1989" rev 0x10: irq 9
ac97: codec id 0x45838308 (ESS Technology ES1921)
ac97: codec features 20 bit DAC, 20 bit ADC, ESS Technology
audio0 at esa0
isa0 at pcib0
isadma0 at isa0
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: 
spkr0 at pcppi0
lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378/4 irq 7
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: reported by CPUID; using exception 16
pccom0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
pccom0: console
pccom1 at isa0 port 0x2f8/8 irq 3: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0/6 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
biomask fd45 netmask ff65 ttymask ffe7
pctr: 686-class user-level performance counters enabled
mtrr: Pentium Pro MTRR support
dkcsum: wd0 matches BIOS drive 0x80
root on wd0a
rootdev=0x0 rrootdev=0x300 rawdev=0x302

# ifconfig -M ral0
ral0: flags=8843 mtu 1500
lladdr 00:13:d3:6a:bb:9d
groups: wlan
media: IEEE802.11 autoselect hostap (autoselect mode 11b  
hostap)

status: active
ieee80211: nwid THE_OFFICE chan 1 bssid 00:13:d3:6a:bb:9d  
100dBm

lladdr 00:11:09:17:35:24 67dB 11M short_preamble assoc
lladdr 00:30:65:1a:43:7d 56dB 11M assoc
inet6 fe80::213:d3ff:fe6a:bb9d%ral0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
inet 192.168.1.5 netmask 0xfffc broadcast 192.168.1.7
inet 192.168.1.9 netmask 0xfffc broadcast 192.168.1.11
inet 192.168.1.13 netmask 0xfffc broadcast 192.168.1.15
inet 192.168.1.17 netmask 0xfffc broadcast 192.168.1.19
inet 192.168.1.21 netmask 0xfffc broadcast 192.168.1.23
inet 192.168.1.25 netmask 0xfffc broadcast 19