Skip navigation
VMware
Up to Discussions in VMware Player

This Question is Answered

1 "correct" answer available (10 pts) 2 "helpful" answers available (6 pts)
35,120 Views 34 Replies Last post: Oct 1, 2011 9:21 AM by ScottPrigge RSS
1 2 3 Previous Next
Crispy Lurker
Crispy
4 posts since
Mar 1, 2006
Currently Being Moderated

Mar 1, 2006 9:23 AM

Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

Host system is linux debian and the guest system is Winxp using vmplayer.

 

I am using the bridged networking option and everything works great except for one very annoying thing.

Network transfers moving files from host->guest over the network is incredibly slow something <1KB/s.

This is independant of protocol, I've tried scp, ftp, and samba.

Transfering files using the above protocols from the guest->host is fine getting something in the order of 4000-7000 KB/s

guest->Any other network host is fine

host->Any other network host is fine

Any other network host ->host is fine

Any other network host ->Guest is fine

 

So now I quite puzzled as to why as if it works fine in one direction but not the other I doubt its a problem with the disk being read and then writtened to straight away.

 

Any ideas ?

 

Thx in advance

 

Chris

Crispy Lurker
Crispy
4 posts since
Mar 1, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
1. Mar 2, 2006 9:02 AM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

after running the vmware-config.pl setting up bridged networking should I be able to see  vmnet0 as a standard interface using ifconfig ?

 

Do I also need during vmware-config.pl to setup another virtual interface connecting to lo device of my host system to get decent host->guest speeds.

Crispy Lurker
Crispy
4 posts since
Mar 1, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
2. Mar 3, 2006 4:25 AM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

I have managed to solve it myself despite lack of any help here so far......

 

For anyone else with a similar problem:

 

Problem is caused by TCP Segment OffLoading of the intel e1000 network card I'm using (although the problem occurs in other 1gig or 10gb cards).  Even though the information I found suggests the relevant bugs were fixed in kernel 2.6.12 (I'm using 2.6.15.4) I got instant results turning it off. 

 

The other thing I had problems with is HOW turn it off in linux.  Windows is quite easy look under advanced network properties of the card, its called 'large send' and set to none.

 

Linux download a useful tool called 'ethtool' and run 'ethtool -K eth0 tso off' where eth0 is whatever network interface u are using.

 

Doing this will (or should) reduce your network throughput although will greatly increase stablility. 

My tests actually show this has improved throughput by 10% on my system ....

 

Message was edited by:

        Crispy

Jo Deisenhofer Lurker
Jo Deisenhofer
1 posts since
Feb 3, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
3. Mar 13, 2006 5:27 PM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

Thank you very much. How did you find out?

This also works for me, though I have a Marvell Yukon card.

Much better, much faster!

Crispy Lurker
Crispy
4 posts since
Mar 1, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
4. Mar 14, 2006 2:24 AM in response to: Jo Deisenhofer
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

The hard way.... look though any hardware/software based problem that caused throughput network problems in both windows and linux.  Started off assuming it was a MTU problem and worked my way up from there in groups.google.co.uk

rbroberts Novice
rbroberts
9 posts since
Jun 19, 2005
Currently Being Moderated
5. Mar 27, 2006 2:55 PM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

Although you listed this in VMware Player, it is not specific to the player---it happens in VMware Workstation too.  I first reported the problem here back in November but gave up on it.

 

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=26962&tstart=0

 

Your "fix" works fine for Workstation, too.  Thanks for chasing this down....

HappyGod Lurker
HappyGod
1 posts since
Apr 18, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
6. Apr 18, 2006 12:48 AM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

Thanks very much for this answer.  You are an absolute champion and have saved me hours  of wasted time I'm sure.  I'd already wasted at least 4 hours until I found your solution.

 

Good stuff!

jander Lurker
jander
1 posts since
Apr 28, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
7. Apr 28, 2006 12:48 PM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

The ethtool command fails with error "[i]Cannot set device tcp segmentation offload settings: Operation not supported[/i]". The driver probably does not support such chage. Any suggestions or workarounds?

The host uses Fedora Core 5 with kernel 2.6.16-1.2080_FC5. The NIC is the nVidia Corporation CK8S Ethernet Controller. The guest system is a Windows XP Pro.

Thanks

lurulf Novice
lurulf
2 posts since
Oct 31, 2004
Currently Being Moderated
8. May 5, 2006 12:35 AM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

You should try to disable any firewall settings on your host computer.

psyk Novice
psyk
9 posts since
May 23, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
9. May 23, 2006 1:05 AM in response to: jander
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

The ethtool command fails with error "[i]Cannot set

device tcp segmentation offload settings: Operation

not supported[/i]". The driver probably does not

support such chage. Any suggestions or workarounds?

The host uses Fedora Core 5 with kernel

2.6.16-1.2080_FC5. The NIC is the nVidia Corporation

CK8S Ethernet Controller. The guest system is a

Windows XP Pro.

Thanks

 

Have a look here:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=105185&highlight=nvnet

chrispitude Novice
chrispitude
31 posts since
May 5, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
10. May 25, 2006 5:58 PM in response to: psyk
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

psyk, crispy,

 

You guys absolutely rock.  This has been my biggest barrier to using vmplayer to run WinXp as a guest on my host linux box.  I had posted url=http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=406667this thread[/url] asking for help, but without success.  Installing nvnet, disabling forcedeth, and using the settings in the linked thread worked beautifully.

 

- Chris

deadcow Lurker
deadcow
3 posts since
May 28, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
11. May 29, 2006 8:05 AM in response to: chrispitude
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

Thank you guys!

 

This should definetively go into the VMware-FAQ!!!

BTW, just to note: I needed to Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Hostrestart the guest[/b] (WinXP) for the change to work.

 

Cheers,

  Mario

Harri Lurker
Harri
3 posts since
Dec 26, 2004
Currently Being Moderated
12. May 31, 2006 2:25 AM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

Unfortunately this did not work for me. Ethtool said for forcedeth:

 

Cannot set device tcp segmentation offload settings: Operation not supported

 

The problem came up with moving from 2.6.15.7 to 2.6.16.18 :-(. I had to patch VMware using vmware-any-any-update101 to build the modules, anyway.

chrispitude Novice
chrispitude
31 posts since
May 5, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
13. Nov 1, 2006 1:25 PM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

It looks like I am facing this problem again.  I've just upgraded the box to Fedora Core 6 and I don't think there is a way to get nvnet installed under FC6.  Once more, any attempt to communicate between my FC6 host and WinXP guest through the network is cripplingly slow.  I was hoping that somewhere between the latest kernel in FC6 and the latest VMWare Player v1.02, this would have gotten fixed.

 

- Chris

chrispitude Novice
chrispitude
31 posts since
May 5, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
14. Nov 2, 2006 12:41 PM in response to: Crispy
Re: Very slow network throughput Host->Guest but not Guest<-Host

Hi all,

 

I looked for the nvnet drivers on nVidia's page.  They don't seem to be on nVidia's webpage anymore.  In fact, nVidia explicitly suggests and provides the forcedeth drivers now.  For my setup (linux host, WinXP guest), any attempt to communicate from the guest to the host drags the guest to an unuseable crawl.

 

Given the number of nForce boards out there, this would seem to be a serious problem.  I am working around it for now with an old dusty NetGear PCI card I hadn't gotten around to throwing away yet, and now the guest/host networking works great!  The nVidia networking on my nForce3 board is 10/100 so it's no big deal, but it would really be unfortunate to lose the integrated gigabit port on all of the nForce4 boards.

 

VMWare, I hope you are listening! 

 

- Chris

Go to original post 1 2 3 Previous Next

Incoming Links

Bookmarked By (0)

Share This Page

Communities