[plug] [Rant/Cry for Help] SSH SO SLOW

[Timothy White]

I'm currently setting up a system to backup a number of OS X laptops
to a Linux server. Now this lovely Linux server is only a 200mhz box,
but it does the job. I'm now trying to speed things up...

For example, ssh -c arcfour appears to be the fastest atm.

A test from a non CPU bound machine gives me for arcfour and blowfish
$ time scp -c arcfour tim at camiroi.local:~/big /tmp
big  100%   20MB   5.0MB/s   00:04
real 4.620      user 0.412      sys 0.144       pcpu 12.03

$ time scp -c blowfish tim at camiroi.local:~/big /tmp
big  100%   20MB   4.0MB/s   00:05
real 5.259      user 0.496      sys 0.152       pcpu 12.32

And a straight copy over NFS (Ensuring the cache is cleared)?

$ time cp /camiroi/home/tim/big /tmp/
real 1.900      user 0.004      sys 0.136       pcpu 7.37

Now, to do these same tests from my nice P200, which I can't test NFS
from, and things are much much slower.

blowfish is 13s, the defaults are 18s, and arcfour is 12s.
Now security isn't an issue for me, as all this will be occurring on a
private isolated network.
BUT, my method needs to work for OS X machines, that are frequently
disconnected (i.e. not always on), so things like NFS aren't ideal. To
me, ssh still appears to be the best method, it's simple, enable ssh
on OS X, and things just work, just not at the fastest speed it should
be able to go. I understand there was a "none" cipher, but it's not in
OpenSSH, or Debian doesn't allow it or something. Although my reading
has suggested the none cipher won't give me much of a speed increase.

Anyway, I guess this is just a rant about how SSH isn't fast enough
for me, and nothing I can think of fits the situation.

I'm open to suggestions though!

Tim
-- 
Linux Counter user #273956
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