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

[Tomasz Grzegurzko]

On 11/16/06, Timothy White <weirdit at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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What about plain vanilla ftp? Why encrypt at all? Surely even Mac
supports a little known protocol called FTP?

=)

Tomasz