Interface Bonding performance trouble over 10 meg wired conn

RouterOS General
1

Hello - I have been experimenting with bonding using 2 RB532A devices. The attempt is to get approx 20 Mbit/sec link using (2) 10 Mbit/sec wired ethernet connections between the routers acting as trunks in a trasparent bridge. Both MT routers are configured as follows: MT 2.8.44 - RB532A Ether1-LAN Ether2-10Mbit trunk Ether3-10Mbit trunk. Ether2+3 = bonded interface. There is a bridge between Ether1 and the Bonded Interface (comprised of Ether 2 + 3).

The first router is plugged into my office network (100mbit/sec LAN) - the second router is plugged into my notebook computer at 100mbit. When I plug my notebook into Ether1 of router #2, I am able to obtain a DHCP lease from my office network, and I can ping, surf the web, everything! When doing these activities I can see ether 2+3 blink away (bond physically looks like it’s working). There is a 2 GB file on my file server (100mbit) - there is little to no other traffic on my LAN. When I download a file locally from the local file server, I get about 10mbit.

I was expecting to see about ~20mbit/sec, not ~10mbit/sec. I look at the CPU utilization on the MT boxes and they don’t seem to go beyond ~30%.

I’m using balance-rr - it seems to be the easiest one to setup, but I’ve played with the other modes a little to. Any suggestions or comments? I’ve tried different patch cables (these are brand new). I want to aggregate the speed, so I can stream files/connections @ ~20mbit/sec. I’m not interested in seeing (up to two) 10mbit/sec streams as the only means of getting 20mbit/sec like performance from a connection.

Has anyone tried this? Have I missed any details that would help? The routers are acting as transparent bridges. They seem to be working well, other than the speed issue.

Another note: On the first router ether1 (connects to my LAN) - I tried setting the port speed to 10 meg, I get a lower overall transfer speed on a large file, but only by a little (%20). If I plug my notebook directly into my office network, I seem to get incredible transfer speeds when copying the test file via the LAN. I do not see a performance issue on my internal office network.

Thanks!

2

Hi

Have you ever managed to get this to work? I would like to experiment with a similar project one of these days, but first doing my homework.

Have you ever played with N-Stream Dual?

3

haven’t got it to work. Nstream doesn’t apply to wired networks

4

I’m aware of N-Stream only being for wireless. I was only wondering if you ever managed to get N-Stream to work.

I honestly have no experience with bonding, as you need control on both sides of the links, and in my environment the other side is the ISP, which will never give you access to their side.

I’ll can simulate your setup in my lab, perhaps it’s not too difficult. I’m sure you tried everything by now. Have you tried some of the latest V2.9 versions?

G

5

It’s funny you wrote, I was going to set aside some time next weekend to try a few more experiments. I’d be happy to share the config/results with you. I try to always post my findings so others can learn. Also, a bunch of my routers are out of the office on loan to people, I need them for the experiments!

6

Yes, please post your results!

It would be very interesting!

Re, G