[plug] Connection problems

[Phil Steege]

Lately my ppp connection has been experiencing some strange times.
I can watch the tranfer rates vary wildly.


Usually I see it go from 219ms up to 8192ms and back again.  It varied
as much as 10 seconds.  All to the same connection.  I tried other ping
locations with the same result.

Sometime, when I am downloading my mail (evolution mail package) it
slows down so much the mail drops out.

Then all of a sudden it will correct itself and all is well for hours.

I am using redhat 7.3.  My network has one win2000 machine and another
redhat7.3.  I am passing all traffic through a smoothwall firewall which
also dials out on the external modem attached to it.

I can ping internally, on my network, with no problems.

What I could use some help on is how do you figure out if the problem is
internal or external.  I have heard some plug members talk about
tcpdump, but I have no experience with it.  I can't say it is not my
firewall doing it either.  I just do not know.

Any help would be appreciated



Here is a prime example of my problem:

64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=54 ttl=111
time=433 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=55 ttl=111
time=364 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=56 ttl=111
time=363 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=57 ttl=111
time=369 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=58 ttl=111
time=363 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=59 ttl=111
time=363 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=60 ttl=111
time=373 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=61 ttl=111
time=1453 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=62 ttl=111
time=463 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=63 ttl=111
time=2259 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=64 ttl=111
time=1273 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=65 ttl=111
time=1704 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=66 ttl=111
time=2929 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=67 ttl=111
time=1923 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=68 ttl=111
time=934 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=69 ttl=111
time=889 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=70 ttl=111
time=14719 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=71 ttl=111
time=15884 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=72 ttl=111
time=18714 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=73 ttl=111
time=17724 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=74 ttl=111
time=17444 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=75 ttl=111
time=16444 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=76 ttl=111
time=15454 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=77 ttl=111
time=15134 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=78 ttl=111
time=14144 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=79 ttl=111
time=13164 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=80 ttl=111
time=12214 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=81 ttl=111
time=12074 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=82 ttl=111
time=12794 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=83 ttl=111
time=11814 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=84 ttl=111
time=10844 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=85 ttl=111
time=427 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=86 ttl=111
time=384 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=87 ttl=111
time=404 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=88 ttl=111
time=384 ms
64 bytes from www.lmt.com.au (203.147.226.90): icmp_seq=89 ttl=111
time=384 ms