I’m hoping you can help me with my limited knowledge.
The set up we are testing is a 3-line Fibre to the cabinet service (in the UK) using MLPPP.
The sync speed of all 3 lines is 80Mbit down and 20Mbit up (we are close to the fibre cabinet), therefore providing a maximum theoretical speed of 240/60.
Of course, there will be lots of overheads, so say around 200/50 to be safe.
The MLPPP is working fine, but the speed maxes out around 150/42. That’s still great, but I’m wondering why its not going faster?
Looking at the status of the 3 ports to which the modems are connected, I can see that traffic is being split equally on all 3 lines, as follows:
As you can see the traffic is being split, but its not getting close to the 75Mbit throughput each line can take individually (tested each line on its own and it maxes at 75 down / 18 up so the lines and modems are ok.
I’ve tried various MTU settings etc and the local network is gigabit.
Yes, each line can attain 75 down and 18 up throughput on their own.
CPU when maxing out the download is actually around 90% so that’s pretty high I guess, could be contributing to it, however when maxing out the upload its only seeing 40% and obtaining 42Mb out of a max of around 54Mb possible.
Yeah ,tested many servers, multi-threaded, http/ftp/Usenet etc.
/interface ethernet
set 0 name=Gateway
set 1 mtu=1520 name=LAN
set 2 mtu=1520 name=“Line 1”
set 3 mtu=1520 name=“Line 2”
set 4 mtu=1520 name=“Line 3”
Need NAT so can’t turn connection tracking off (unless I just use the RB for the MLPPP and then bridge it to another router to handle the LAN - would that work and what setting is required?).
P.S. Its a RB450G with a 680Mhz CPU and 256MB RAM so I would have thought it could cope better!
Can you make a full export of /int eth exp?
Have you tried other MRRU settings, or consulted the ISP? BTW, what’s on the other side?
What is the CPU load while the speed test runs?
If the CPU load is high, it would be interesting to turn off connection tracking and disable all filter rules.
Is it possible for you to have a “testbox” on the ISP side, just to ensure that there are no bottlenecks on their side?
/interface ethernet
set 0 arp=enabled auto-negotiation=yes bandwidth=unlimited/unlimited disabled=no full-duplex=yes l2mtu=1520 mac-address=D4:CA:6D:34:E0:03 master-port=none mtu=1500 name=Gateway speed=100Mbps
set 1 arp=enabled auto-negotiation=yes bandwidth=unlimited/unlimited disabled=no full-duplex=yes l2mtu=1520 mac-address=D4:CA:6D:34:E0:04 master-port=none mtu=1520 name=LAN speed=100Mbps
set 2 arp=enabled auto-negotiation=yes bandwidth=unlimited/unlimited disabled=no full-duplex=yes l2mtu=1520 mac-address=D4:CA:6D:34:E0:05 master-port=none mtu=1520 name=“Line 1” speed=100Mbps
set 3 arp=enabled auto-negotiation=yes bandwidth=unlimited/unlimited disabled=no full-duplex=yes l2mtu=1520 mac-address=D4:CA:6D:34:E0:06 master-port=none mtu=1520 name=“Line 2” speed=100Mbps
set 4 arp=enabled auto-negotiation=yes bandwidth=unlimited/unlimited disabled=no full-duplex=yes l2mtu=1520 mac-address=D4:CA:6D:34:E0:07 master-port=none mtu=1520 name=“Line 3” speed=100Mbps
/interface ethernet switch
set 0 mirror-source=none mirror-target=none name=switch1 switch-all-ports=yes
/interface ethernet switch port
set 0 vlan-header=leave-as-is vlan-mode=fallback
set 1 vlan-header=leave-as-is vlan-mode=fallback
set 2 vlan-header=leave-as-is vlan-mode=fallback
set 3 vlan-header=leave-as-is vlan-mode=fallback
set 4 vlan-header=leave-as-is vlan-mode=fallback
set 5 vlan-header=leave-as-is vlan-mode=fallback
Yes, other MTU/MRU/etc have been tested with no difference.
CPU load is around 90% as you can see in the original post screenshot.
Can’t turn off connection tracking without disabling NAT, so it will take the office PC’s down - so I’ll need to work out a different way of doing that, possibly by putting the RB in a bridge mode and then use a gigabit router for the NAT/LAN? What do you think?
No limits on the ISP side, I’ve been informed. They’ve tested it up to around 500 Mbit/s in their labs.
Just wanted to see if the switch was involved in the configuration.
I can’t see anything wrong in the configuration so, the last thing to test is to configure the RB 450G as a bridge and add an other router for the NAT and firewalling.
Would turning off connection tracking really make a noticeable difference to the CPU utilisation as I was the only PC on the network at the time of doing the speedtest?
Sorry, here you go:
What router is more powerful? A 680MHz router with 256MB RAM is pretty hefty in my experience, most routers are 8 or 16MB RAM with a 300MHz CPU.
Then you need to route the traffic through the MT to the NAT router and that you ISP route that NAT-IP through your MT’s IP.
So, I bet that the CPU is busy with the MLPPP.
Do you have a RB1100AH for testing, If not try a PC with 4 nics and install ROS with the same configuration.
You can run ROS i386 version in demo mode for 24hours.
A 680 Mhz router with only one core is not powerfull enough to do this.
The RAM quantity is not the problem. The processor speed is.
Do not forget that on a software based router, all packets need to pass through the processor for routing, qos, firewall, and all other tasks like MLPPP framing. In the end this ask a lot of processor ressources.
Perhaps that the new generation RB2011 could do it, or a dual core RB1100AHx2.
If still not enough wait for the 36 cores (1.2 Ghz per core) CCR1036 :=) This is the way to go for near wire speed routing.
And if you need true wire speed without latency, there is no other way than using a FPGA / ASIC based router, but be prepared to spend much more money at the well known high cost manufacturers…
I actually have a spare PC with 4 NIC’s in. So do I just download the ROS ISO for the PC / x86 and boot the CD, or is there some special installation requirements with a PC?
no special requirements except that your hardware needs to be compatible, and that you’ll need to buy a licence after the trial period, (one day if i remember well).
You’ll need to install it on HD from the CD if i remember well, this needs a full HD format. you cannot partition your disk.
I don’t like a lot the PC solution. A lot of power waste. Using an Intel X86 for routing is like driving with a ferrari in a small city.
More you will not have full support from Mikrotik, because the hardware part is not under their control.
Read: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:CD_Install
You can install on a harddisk, USB flash, CF or whatever device your PC can boot from.
You can also prepare a USB stick from the Netinstall program, but for now it’s easier to run off from a CD
