Kingman "the internet is slow" guide

[clonm]

We should help @kngnm debug and also write up a flow chart or something of debugging steps

[clonm]

We fixed Kingman's problem for the moment by disconnecting their router so that they get IPs from Cloyne's router

Before:

	speedtest-cil down	speedtest-cli up	toadserver down	toadserver up
server3	50-56 Mbit/s	28-34 Mb/s
Zach's and Ellie's laptops on Kingman's wifi	7-14 Mbit/s	13-27 Mbit/s	4 Mbit/s	8-14 Mbit
toadserver	5 Mbit/s down	14 Mb/s up
Zach's laptop directly connected to kng-router	6.5 Mbit/s	21.15 Mbit/s
Ellie's laptop directly connected to Kingman switch	39 Mbit/s	18 Mbit/s
Ellie's laptop on Kingman's wifi after disconnecting Kingman's router	50 Mbit/s	20 Mbit/s

Before disconnecting Kingman's router, we also

1. Assigned kng-router a static local IP address from clo-router
2. Set up port forwarding on kng-router so that toadserver could be reached from the outside: 2a. Under IP > Firewall > NAT, added a rule (under action dns-nat we set "to address" to toadserver's 192.169.x.x IP):

Action	Chain	Src. Address	Dst. Address	Protocol	Src. Port	Dst. Port	Any. Port	In. Interface	out. Interface
dst-nat	dstnat			6 (tcp)		8000	(Kingman's default)

2b. Under IP > Firewall > Filters, added a rule:

Action	Chain	Src. Address	Dst. Address	Protocol	Src. Port	Dst. Port	Any. Port	In. Interface	out. Interface
accept	forward			6 (tcp)		22

@kngnm

[kngnm]

Update:

• I connected the PoE of kng-router into the network closet switch. I simultaneously ran speedtest-cli on toadserver (connected via the network closet switch) and my laptop connected to kng-router by ethernet. The differences between the speeds were insignificant.
• I saved a backup of the configuration for kng-router and factory reset it. I connected the PoE of kng-router to the kng-clo antenna and connected the network closet switch to kng-router. I then ran speedtest-cli from toadserver. The speed was 7 Mb/s.
• I looked carefully at the diff between the configurations for clo-router and kng-router. I didn't find any unexpected differences between the two. Of course, I'm no expert. This might be worth looking into further.
• I skimmed through this this article on networking devices. On page 124 it explains the difference between full and half duplex ethernet communication. Essentially, full duplex mode allows an ethernet port to send and receive data at the same time, increasing speed. Half-duplex does not.
• I later found this forum post. The OP was also trying to set up a subnet and encountered a bandwidth bottleneck. They found a solution by changing autonegotiation settings setting on their router.
• That lead me to the autonegotiation wikipedia page. In a nutshell, the ethernet ports on many network devices can be configured to use full or half duplex. If two connected ethernet ports are in different modes, it causes performance issue (the Duplex Mismatch explains why, but I don't fully understand). Autonegotiation allows two ethernet ports to decide on a duplex mode based on the capabilities of both ports.
• The clo-kng antenna was connected to port ether1 on kng-router. Ether1 was set to autonegotiate. However, the ethernet port on the antenna was set to Full Duplex 100Mb/s. As detailed in the Wikipedia article, this causes a Duplex Mismatch. This may be why the internet was slow with the router.

Potential Solution: set ether1 to Full Duplex 100Mb/s. I will have to wait for a good time to drop the internet to try this. I will keep you updated.

@clonm

[kngnm]

Update: I have corrected the Duplex Mismatch using the solution above. It seems to have resolved the speed issues. I have been consistently seeing speeds between 20 and 40Mb/s using speedtest-cli on my laptop. I am working on trying to set up the router as it was historically. It is now setup to use the 10.20.96.0/22 ip range as specified on the mesh github page. I have also been working to configure it to use Cloyne's DNS server on server2.cloyne. The idea is that if the router's configuration matches as closely as possible to the last router that was used on the network, problems like this one will probably not come up in the future. Thanks for your support. @clonm

[clonm]

see also: upgrading to gigabit