Amn

Hi all,

I am posting this in WiFi section because this I am sure has nothing to do with Ubuntu that I am running, rather with kernel network configuration that they have tweaked. Since kernel is Linux, I am sure this is the right place to ask.

The thing is apparently folks at Canonical have changed/tweaked some network settings, because now when I stream videos for example, my already weak router goes down. I am running Ubuntu 9.04 and connected through 802.11g, WEP 128-bit, router is 2m away from me. I am not sure whether I should tweak some TCP settings or the wireless card driver settings, or both.

I did not have this problem to such degree in Ubuntu 8.10, from which I upgraded a week ago. It used to bring down the router occasionally when Transmission (BitTorrent client) was connected to very many peers, so I am suspecting my router cannot handle too many connections well, and brings down its system. The only thing that helps then is to re-plug it in the mains, i.e. very cold and hard reset.

However, I can see now that whatever change they have made in network settings in the latest distribution, it now brings down my router much more often than before. Any idea what settings and where I should change? Like max. TCP connection limit etc?

The Wifi driver is ipw2200 (Intel) and the card is Intel Wireless Link 2200ABG in a Thinkpad T43 laptop. The router is beyond salvation, but it works, however bad

Rubberman

Your Linux system is only the irritant that is causing your router to crash. Get a new router. A decent consumer/small-business one will cost you about $50 USD. I have used a number of such devices, Linksys, D-Link, 2Wire, and others and have NEVER had an issue, even with multiple systems running with many connections at the same time. Trust me, I really stress the network and if my routers were going to go belly-up on me, they would have.

__________________
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real time.

Rubberman

P.S. If your router is provided by your ISP, then ask them for a new one, because yours is broken!

__________________
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real time.

Amn

Thank you but that is not an option at this time. Besides I outlined the fact that the previous version did not bring it down unless I was downloading with Transmissionfrom something like 20 peers simultaneously.

I am aware of the fact that the router is living its last days. But currently a bunch of commands to tweak the network to go easy on it might be a better solution than to purchase a new router, which I will eventually do anyway.

Besides, I would like to know what exactly is causing this. I am a programmer, and have the knack for these kind of things, I guess.

Amn

No, my ISP does not do that. They only provide a semi-dedicated 10Mbit backbone via the usual twisted-pair network cable. I have to use NAT as well, since we are two per the household sharing the line.

Rubberman

The router could (or should) care less about how many connections are live. If it has its own DNS cache, then it might be crashing because of a memory problem. Go into the router setup and see if you can disable that, so that all DNS requests (name -> ip address mapping) are passed to your ISP or another DNS server. If the router cannot do that, then you can do this indirectly by inserting a nameserver entry pointing to an external DNS server in your /etc/resolv.conf ahead of the others. Are you familiar with the /etc/resolv.conf file?

__________________
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real time.