suse 11.1 extremely slow beyond my router?

[back_to_suse]

This has been a fun excercise, lol.

It started out with me upgrading my mobo to a Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4.

Obviously, Windows bailed when faced with the new devices, so I had no choice after 3 reboots of it's lengthy time consuming self diagnostic/repair tools, to just reinstall.

Then came the fact that Windows did not like the new NICs but of course there was a set of drivers included in the mobo's box so no real problems there. You can see where this is going right^^

Hooray for shell & mkinitrd. With a quick boot in to the SUSE 10.3 rescue shell, I mounted the drives and ran mkinitrd. Job done, the system instantly booted with the new mobo.

However, SUSE 10.3 did not like the new nics either and no matter what I could do, it just was not gonna work. So, as I was planning on upgrading to 11.1 anyway, I did and it took less than half the time the similar Vista reinstall took. Not bad considering I was upgrading from 32 bit SUSE 10.3 to 64 bit SUSE 11.1

So here's where it starts to get frustrating. The nics in question are the dreaded Realtek 8169 chips that apparently are actually 8168B/8111B chips.

SUSE 10.3 saw the nics and let me supply configuration data but refused to accept that they were actually wired

SUSE 11.1 sees the nics, lets me supply configuration data and accepts that they are wired.

I can even access my router's admin page via a browser over the lan. Using the router's admin tools, I can see the Internet connection is working because I can resolve addresses and ping them.

Yet I cannot access anything beyond my router from the SUSE system, regardless of whether I am using the shell or gnome, or whether I use dns or ip addresses. Well sort of

For one thing, the dns resolver is definitely not working. I cannot resolve addreses in any gui or cli application.

If I resolve the name of say BBC - Homepage using the router's admin tools and then access the website via the ip address in firefox, I actualy get the page after a time span that can only be measured accurately in eons

I cannot ping nor traceroute the dns servers which are 2 hops beyond my router.

I checked the nic settings using ethtool and it all looks good, which is a relief considering all the posts I read said that the nic would suffer the same problems it did in SUSE 10.3.

So to recap, I can access my routers admin interface using Firefox over the lan. The routers internal admin dns resolver and ping tools work perfectly. A laptop on the same lan, using the same router at the same time, gets instant Internet responses. Of course when the same computer is booted in to Vista it gets perfect Internet access using exactly the same nics, router and cable.

My system is

O/S: openSUSE 11.1 64bit (no updates/patches)
MOBO: GA-X48-DS4
CPU: Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz
RAM: 4GB PC2-1066

The nics are onboard and are reported as RTR8168B/8111B in the boot log but are loaded with the r8619 module, which is used by the MII module according to lsmod output.

ethtool confirms the nics advertise auto negotiation and are running 100Mb/s full duplex on MII port, current message level 51 (decimal).

Now ordinarily I would suspect that if I could solve why I cannot ping beyond the router, then the dns resolver problem would be solved.

However, I am confused by the fact that I could load BBC - Homepage by ip address in Firefox, albeit excrutiatingly slowly.

So any ideas anyone?

On Sun June 28 2009 04:06 pm, back to suse wrote:

>
> This has been a fun excercise, lol.
>
> It started out with me upgrading my mobo to a Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4.
>
> Obviously, Windows bailed when faced with the new devices, so I had no
> choice after 3 reboots of it's lengthy time consuming self
> diagnostic/repair tools, to just reinstall.
>
> Then came the fact that Windows did not like the new NICs but of course
> there was a set of drivers included in the mobo's box so no real
> problems there. You can see where this is going right^^
>
> Hooray for shell & mkinitrd. With a quick boot in to the SUSE 10.3
> rescue shell, I mounted the drives and ran mkinitrd. Job done, the
> system instantly booted with the new mobo.
>
> However, SUSE 10.3 did not like the new nics either and no matter what
> I could do, it just was not gonna work. So, as I was planning on
> upgrading to 11.1 anyway, I did and it took less than half the time the
> similar Vista reinstall took. Not bad considering I was upgrading from
> 32 bit SUSE 10.3 to 64 bit SUSE 11.1
>
> So here's where it starts to get frustrating. The nics in question are
> the dreaded Realtek 8169 chips that apparently are actually 8168B/8111B
> chips.
>
> SUSE 10.3 saw the nics and let me supply configuration data but refused
> to accept that they were actually wired
>
> SUSE 11.1 sees the nics, lets me supply configuration data and accepts
> that they are wired.
>
> I can even access my router's admin page via a browser over the lan.
> Using the router's admin tools, I can see the Internet connection is
> working because I can resolve addresses and ping them.
>
> Yet I cannot access anything beyond my router from the SUSE system,
> regardless of whether I am using the shell or gnome, or whether I use
> dns or ip addresses. Well sort of
>
> For one thing, the dns resolver is definitely not working. I cannot
> resolve addreses in any gui or cli application.
>
> If I resolve the name of say 'BBC - Homepage' (http://www.bbc.co.uk)
> using the router's admin tools and then access the website via the ip
> address in firefox, I actualy get the page after a time span that can
> only be measured accurately in eons
>
> I cannot ping nor traceroute the dns servers which are 2 hops beyond my
> router.
>
> I checked the nic settings using ethtool and it all looks good, which
> is a relief considering all the posts I read said that the nic would
> suffer the same problems it did in SUSE 10.3.
>
> So to recap, I can access my routers admin interface using Firefox over
> the lan. The routers internal admin dns resolver and ping tools work
> perfectly. A laptop on the same lan, using the same router at the same
> time, gets instant Internet responses. Of course when the same computer
> is booted in to Vista it gets perfect Internet access using exactly the
> same nics, router and cable.
>
> My system is
>
> O/S: openSUSE 11.1 64bit (no updates/patches)
> MOBO: GA-X48-DS4
> CPU: Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz
> RAM: 4GB PC2-1066
>
> The nics are onboard and are reported as RTR8168B/8111B in the boot log
> but are loaded with the r8619 module, which is used by the MII module
> according to lsmod output.
>
> ethtool confirms the nics advertise auto negotiation and are running
> 100Mb/s full duplex on MII port, current message level 51 (decimal).
>
> Now ordinarily I would suspect that if I could solve why I cannot ping
> beyond the router, then the dns resolver problem would be solved.
>
> However, I am confused by the fact that I could load 'BBC - Homepage'
> (http://www.bbc.co.uk) by ip address in Firefox, albeit excrutiatingly
> slowly.
>
> So any ideas anyone?
>
>
back to suse;
1. If you have not done so already disable IPv6 globally with YaST and in
Firefox. If this solves your problem just quit. With some ISPs IPv6 causes
problems.
2 Assuming the above does not help, can you post the results of the following
commands:

/sbin/ifconfig -a
/sbin/route -n
cat /etc/resolv.conf

If you are using dhcp, it is possible that your router is not setting the DNS
server. In this case set a static DNS with your ISP's DNS server's IP.
(Their DNS server's address should be available on their web site)

This HowTo might be of value: http://opensuse.swerdna.org/susenic.html

--
P. V.
"We're all in this together, I'm pulling for you." Red Green

[caf4926]

Disable IPv6 - openSUSE Forums

[back_to_suse]

Okay I was asked to make sure ipv6 was disabled and provide the following information

/sbin/ifconfig -a
/sbin/route -n
cat /etc/resolv.conf

So ipv6 was disabled, it's one of the first things I check with networking on any o/s tbh.

Here's the ouptut requested, plus lsmod output, ethtool output and an extract of perhaps relevant entries in my dmesg

ifconfig output
===============
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1F0:20:8E:04
inet addr:192.168.0.5 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1492 Metric:1
RX packets:25 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:49 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1690 (1.6 Kb) TX bytes:5771 (5.6 Kb)
Interrupt:249 Base address:0x2000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:300 (300.0 b) TX bytes:300 (300.0 b)



resolv.conf output
==================
### /etc/resolv.conf file autogenerated by netconfig!
#
# Before you change this file manually, consider to define the
# static DNS configuration using the following variables in the
# /etc/sysconfig/network/config file:
# NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST
# NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS
# NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER
# or disable DNS configuration updates via netconfig by setting:
# NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=''
#
# See also the netconfig(8) manual page and other documentation.
#
# Note: Manual change of this file disables netconfig too, but
# may get lost when this file contains comments or empty lines
# only, the netconfig settings are same with settings in this
# file and in case of a "netconfig update -f" call.
#
nameserver 192.168.4.100
nameserver 192.168.8.100



netstat -anr output
===================
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1



lsmod output
============
Module Size Used by
sco 12572 2
rfcomm 42648 0
bridge 57288 1
stp 3020 1 bridge
bnep 14664 2
l2cap 24056 6 rfcomm,bnep
bluetooth 63652 6 sco,rfcomm,bnep,l2cap
nls_utf8 2160 1
snd_pcm_oss 48896 0
snd_mixer_oss 16808 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq 61968 0
microcode 25912 0
fuse 61088 5
loop 17924 0
dm_mod 73952 0
snd_hda_intel 545508 0
snd_usb_audio 97936 1
snd_usb_lib 18856 1 snd_usb_audio
snd_pcm 95440 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio
uvcvideo 56240 0
snd_timer 26664 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_rawmidi 26768 1 snd_usb_lib
snd_seq_device 8604 2 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd_page_alloc 9816 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
jmicron 3048 0
compat_ioctl32 8536 1 uvcvideo
snd_hwdep 9072 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio
snd 74632 13 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_hda_intel,sn d_usb_audio,snd_usb_lib,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_rawm idi,snd_seq_device,snd_hwdep
iTCO_wdt 13040 0
r8169 31388 0
videodev 35328 2 uvcvideo,compat_ioctl32
sr_mod 16196 1
ohci1394 31380 0
i2c_i801 12836 0
iTCO_vendor_support 4268 1 iTCO_wdt
rtc_cmos 13960 0
mii 6024 1 r8169
v4l1_compat 14220 2 uvcvideo,videodev
cdrom 36200 1 sr_mod
ahci 34628 0
ieee1394 98880 1 ohci1394
i2c_core 35280 1 i2c_i801
pata_jmicron 4104 0
pcspkr 3064 0
joydev 12112 0
soundcore 8816 1 snd
rtc_core 22420 1 rtc_cmos
serio_raw 6412 0
button 8328 0
rtc_lib 3560 1 rtc_core
sg 35344 0
usbhid 52896 0
hid 41568 1 usbhid
ff_memless 8912 1 usbhid
sd_mod 35064 7
uhci_hcd 27928 0
ehci_hcd 55348 0
crc_t10dif 2152 1 sd_mod
usbcore 198656 7 snd_usb_audio,snd_usb_lib,uvcvideo,usbhid,uhci_hcd ,ehci_hcd
pata_via 9836 0
sata_via 11772 0
edd 10272 0
ext3 141912 3
mbcache 10412 1 ext3
jbd 68824 1 ext3
fan 6016 0
ide_pci_generic 4652 0
ide_core 118012 2 jmicron,ide_pci_generic
ata_generic 6044 0
ata_piix 21628 6
libata 183376 6 ahci,pata_jmicron,pata_via,sata_via,ata_generic,at a_piix
scsi_mod 179144 4 sr_mod,sg,sd_mod,libata
dock 14564 1 libata
thermal 24232 0
processor 49904 1 thermal
thermal_sys 14336 3 fan,thermal,processor
hwmon 4040 1 thermal_sys



ethtool output
==============
Settings for eth1:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
Link detected: yes


dmesg extract
=============
Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
Linux version 2.6.27.7-9-default (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 4.3.2 [gcc-4_3-branch revision 141291] (SUSE Linux) ) #1 SMP 2008-12-04 18:10:04 +0100
Command line: root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3360320AS_6QF2WZ04-part3 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3360320AS_6QF2WZ04-part2 splash=silent vga=0x31a
<snip>
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 524288 (order: 11, 8388608 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 524288 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
<snip>
r8169: eth1: link up
r8169: eth1: link up

So far, no matter what I have tried does not work and ofc all other computers on the network are fine, lol

[back_to_suse]

Sadly I will be moving away from SUSE to Mandriva again, same thing I tend to do every 12 months lol.

Unfortunately I cannot get 11.1 network to work.

I replaced the mobo nics with a pci nic to see if it was the drivers or the network sub-system that was faulty. It seems that it is the network system that is at fault.

I have checked everything I can to the best of my abilities and I simply cannot get 11.1 networking to work, so as I have to use my computer for work I have no choice but to move on to another distro that works for me. After checking google for people with similar problems and finding none, I have to accept that this problem is local to me for some weird reason, I even reinstalled 11.1 from scratch because I did not trust the upgrade that I did.

Then I booted with a Mandriva live cd and it worked straight away with full networking.

I tend to switch to Mandriva when SUSE does not work for me and wait for the problem to be solved through patches before I come back again. So I will not be removing it from my system, just putting it into hibernation for a while.

Fingers crossed the networking issue will be resolved soon.

[GransRemedy]

Well this sounds to me like a configuration issue rather than a hardware/driver issue.

One thing that looks a bit odd to me is your list of nameservers (DNS).
nameserver 192.168.4.100
nameserver 192.168.8.100

These are local addresses on different subnets to your Suse box. I presume that one of these IPs belongs to your router or some other box handling DNS queries? Which is a bit odd as I would expect it to be on the same subnet as your Suse box (192.168.0)
If there is no route to these hosts, then that is likely why you cannot browse the web from your Suse box. Have you tried pinging them from your Suse box?


What I tend to do is use the DNS server my ISP gives me as the DNS server in Suse, ie using them in Suses network config. I find that if I put the actual IP address of my ISPs DNS servers in there, DNS lookups are much quicker than going via my router. Its worth a shot, but of course YMMV.

[back_to_suse]

Hey Grans, thanks a lot for pointing out the embarrassingly obvious, that I had put the wrong dns addresses in resolv,conf

I will swear though that the first time around, i.e. when I upgraded from 10.3, the resolv.conf file would have had the correct addresses in it because the upgrade process does not change your existing config.

In any event, I had changed it to be the address of my router, i.e. namesever 192.168.0.1 but that did not work either.

Now I can set my resolv.conf to use either my router address or the isp dns addresses which are actually 194.168.4.100 and 194.168.8.100, with complete success either way. So it looks like that last complete install on to a freshly formatted partition fixed things, even though I had done that before.

*cough* note the subtle difference in the actual isp dns addresses and the ones I had entered

Now I have a dilemma in that for the first time in a very long period, I have both SUSE and Mandriva working installations on my system.

Oh well it will be interesting to compare both distros. Already I can say that they both incorrectly state the speed of my Q6600 as 3.6Ghz when it is in fact 3.2Ghz.

I will need to resolve this dilemma soon though, as one of them will need to make way for Windows 7 RC.

Hey Grans, thanks for the reply which made me look at the SUSE distro again, otherwise I might not have looked for acouple of weeks. Guess it was a case of "can't see the wood for the trees" in the end.

PPS: On a good ending, I can say that the r8169 driver is definitely working correctly in the latest kernels.