[Asterisk-Users] LAN card

T. Chan tommy.chan at utimail.com
Sun Jan 25 05:13:49 MST 2004


Thanks, Ray

No, I am not running any other programs other than basic OS and Asterisk.
No, I am not using the swapMemory yet, but like you under USED memory, I am
using about 450M or above after the computer has been rebooted for a couple
of days. I am using a Baystack switch and I will try to look at the
statistics, but it is very difficult to believe that something is wrong with
all the Baystack switch installed at different locations along with the
different Asterisks, when all are having the same problem and symptom.

I am just running console and no other programs, basically after installing
Redhat, we installed the Asterisk and that is it, and when problem started
to happen, CPU usages have been low, I doubt it that it was the CPU usage or
memory. When you mentioned Intel 1000XT, is it an ONBOARD or PCI card? What
is the maximum number of calls you have experienced with your system?

Thanks, Ray.



-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of Ray
Burkholder
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 5:43 AM
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] LAN card


What else are you running on your server?  On my server running asterisk and
apache, it has the following:
        total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  261443584 237064192 24379392        0 55992320 143912960
Swap: 260104192 11231232 248872960
MemTotal:       255316 kB
MemFree:         23808 kB
SwapTotal:      254008 kB
SwapFree:       243040 kB

I've got very little swap usage, even with 256MB total physical.

For the switch, have you looked at the statistics?
For example on a Cisco:

sw2#sho inter f0/1
FastEthernet0/1 is up, line protocol is up
  Hardware is Fast Ethernet, address is 0005.5e31.5f41 (bia 0005.5e31.5f41)
  Description: Trunk:  r1-skings
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 100000 Kbit, DLY 100 usec,
     reliability 251/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255
  Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set
  Keepalive not set
  Full-duplex, 100Mb/s, 100BaseTX/FX
  ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00
  Last input 00:00:40, output 00:00:00, output hang never
  Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
  Queueing strategy: fifo
  Output queue 0/40, 0 drops; input queue 0/75, 0 drops
  30 second input rate 3000 bits/sec, 4 packets/sec
  30 second output rate 6000 bits/sec, 8 packets/sec
     75312691 packets input, 1770301889 bytes
     Received 515417 broadcasts, 7622395 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
     7622399 input errors, 4 CRC, 0 frame, 4 overrun, 92 ignored
     0 watchdog, 255441 multicast
     0 input packets with dribble condition detected
     104212173 packets output, 2775526395 bytes, 0 underruns
     0 output errors, 0 collisions, 3 interface resets
     0 babbles, 0 late collision, 0 deferred
     0 lost carrier, 0 no carrier
     0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out

Looks like I've got some input errors I should be looking into.  It should
be
as close to 0 as possible.

An Intel 1000XT are good cards at they do TCP Engine Offload.  Or something
similar.  But voice traffic is measured in kbits/second, which is a very low
proportion of 10mbps or even 100mbps.

So I'd say take another look at your server and see if an application isn't
makeing a mess of your cpu processing.  Becuase Asterisk is time senstive,
it
should really be the only primary process running on your machine.

AND, YOU SHOULD NOT BE RUNNING XWINDOWS.  The os should have been installed
in
console mode, and as little as possible relating to X installed.

Quoting "T. Chan" <tommy.chan at utimail.com>:



> Thanks alot, Ray
>
> Well, looking at cat /proc/meminfo, I am getting like 250M memory cached,
> with 512M total RAM, for all the gateways I have, this is quite
consistent.
> Total Memory usages are always low after reboot and then go up to 450M
with
> time. I was informed that this is normal for Linux.
>
> Thanks for your input on Managed switch. However as said, I tried both
> Managed switch and non-Managed switch but have reaped the same result with
> packet loss when there are more active calls. Do you have any experience
> whether I need a good PCI LAN card like 3COM or Intel Express due to the
> demanding VOIP packets or do you think Intel ONBOARD LAN card should be
> sufficient?
>
> Thanks
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of Ray
> Burkholder
> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 4:35 AM
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] LAN card
>
>
> Take a look at your memory utilization, you should not be paging/caching
any
> memory.
>
> Switches are will known not to auto-negotiate properly.  All switches,
nics,
> routers, etc should be manually configured for full-duplex.  Make sure
each
> connection is set appropriately for 1000/100/10 mpbs, what ever is
> appropriate
> for that connection.  And yes, you can get full duplex for 10 mpbs
> connections
> (in answer to a message a while back on the list).
>
> Managed switches are best becuase you can look at them and get an idea of
> link/packet errors on each port.  Obviously you want to completely
eliminate
> errors on each port.  Once you've done that, you should be well on your
way
> to
> a reliable, scalable solution.
>
> Quoting "T. Chan" <tommy.chan at utimail.com>:
>
> > Dear All,
> >
> > Just an experience to run by all you experts out there. I have started
to
> > put more VOIP calls into Asterisk, most are pass-through calls and some
> are
> > terminating on the Digium card to PSTN. Whenever I get to 10 calls or
> more,
> > I would start to get choppy sound. I tried to ping other IP addresses
from
> > the Asterisk and noticed a big packet loss in the vincinity of 7% to
10%,
> > but when there is no call, pinging the same IP addresses reap no packet
> > loss. It seems that the VOIP packets are causing congestion of some kind
> on
> > the LAN. I am using 100M, full duplex. I tried an autonegotiated
switching
> > hub as well as a more sophisticated managed switching hub and forcing
the
> > connection to be 100M Full Duplex, non negotiated. However, I reaped the
> > same result.
> >
> > Question is, do you know if it is better to use Managed switch and
forcing
> > the Ethernet connection to be 100M Full Duplex, or to use a normal
> UnManaged
> > switch and let it negotiate.
> > Also, I am using both a normal PCI LAN card as well as trying to use the
> > onboard Intel 100PRO Lan card, and in both situations, I started to get
> lose
> > packets when the number of calls increased. My colleagues, can anyone
tell
> > me if I am doing something wrong here, or is there something I am
> > forgetting, or I simply need to use a more powerful LAN card due to the
> > demand of VOIP packets.
> >
>
>
>
> Ray Burkholder
> 704 644 6999 x2002
> http://www.oneunified.net
> ray at oneunified.net
>
>
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Ray Burkholder
704 644 6999 x2002
http://www.oneunified.net
ray at oneunified.net


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