I'll reply to a couple of responses at once - thanks all for
promptness!
>You said that "all other boxes on the network experience a
crippling
>slowdown" when copying large
files. Do you mean that Box C is slow
>delivering data to the public network when Box A is copying files
to Box
>B on the private Gb network? Or is
Box C slow in talking to Box D on
>the private
network when the transfers are happening?
To clarify - when copying largish files between boxes A and B,
all other boxes become
very unresponsive in general
usage - reports on CPU, disk, network and so on all appear normal.
Nothing appears in dmesg nor messages, but the other boxes
chug - even doing a simple 'ls'.
>What do the network traffic lights look like on both
switches?
It's in the Co Location facility... will have to check another
day
>Is there anything strange in the output of sar -n eth[01]?
on both the
>transfering and non-transfering
systems?
We're going to investigate this.
>You could be having problems with the nics advertised
auto-negotiating and having problems with renegotiating
>during a heavy network load.
We're looking at ethtool but it seems to break the interface -
we'll keep at it and see if we can switch off the autonegotiation since we
don't need it (all devices on the network are the same - tg3)
>This may sound like an obvious step, but have you verified
that you are using cat5E and not cat5 on these?
Interesting point - the cables were bought new for this build
and are about 2 months old - will have to check them explicitly (again -
Co-Location facility) but aren't they all Cat5e compatible nowadays? Still,
something to check.
>Which model switch?
NetGear GS516T - bog standard config-free Gb switch
>Possibly, but any modern network switch acts as a
multi-port bridge, so
>your other boxes should not
even see traffic.
Of course... but the effect is there - we'll do some more
thorough checks to make sure though... Hmmm. Faulty switch?
Something very odd is afoot here...
Seumas
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