Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed

stephenw10

That's true but if it applied here it would also restrict a directly connected laptop.

steve10240

I'm also facing this issue, but with a different equipment and ISP (Frontier Fiber ISP -> Nokia XS-010X-Q ONT -> PFSense Asrock NUC BOX-1360P/D5 Fanned BOX with dual i226 NICs). When I am connected directly to the Nokia XS-010X-Q ONT box, I get symmetrical speeds both down and up (1gbps). When my PFSense box WAN port is connected to the Fiber ISP ONT box, download stays at 1gbps but upload speeds tank to 140mbps.

I am curious what the solution ends up being for the OP. I had another router on hand, Edgerouter PoE4, and when that router is hooked up to the ONT, it also gets full 1gbps/1gbps for download and upload. I am trying to figure out what is preventing the PFSense box from reaching its full upload speed capability.

nynx64

@fathead said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

@nynx64
@stephenw10
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/w2ts56/frontier_fiber_vlan0/igsf66n/](link url)
Some isp require upload tag on vlan 0 or 1
Have you set the vlan tag and priority bit?
What is your wan vlan config?

Didn't tag WAN with any vlan.. just set the interface and left the rest default.

@steve10240

I have a frankenstein PC i use for testing. I pulled the mellanox card and ssd out of the zeus and transplanted them into that.. except i'm using the onboard 1G for WAN.

So it's definitely the NIC. This should get me by till that intel card delivers sometime later.

steve10240

@nynx64 I think it's my NIC too, but that is the last thing I haven't tried yet on the PFSense box. I tried placing a TrendNet 2.5G unmanaged switch between my Fiber ONT and PFSense router to see if that would resolve the upload speeds, but it didn't. I'm going to try a USB NIC.

I really thought there were some tunables that were needed to get the intel nics working right, but I don't know. Hopefully it works with your intel card!

stephenw10

An i226 NIC should be fine. Are you seeing errors on the NIC? Are you seeing multiple queues for bot Tx and Rx?

You might try setting hw.igc.max_interrupt_rate: 20000 though the default there should restrict anything at 140Mbps.

Steve

steve10240

@stephenw10 How do I check for the errors and the queues? Is that under diagnostics?

stephenw10

Errors would be shown in Status > Interfaces.

Queues are shown in the boot log whn the driver attaches but you can also check vmstat -i to make sure they are being used when under load.

steve10240

@stephenw10 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

Errors would be shown in Status > Interfaces.

Queues are shown in the boot log whn the driver attaches but you can also check vmstat -i to make sure they are being used when under load.

While running the Upload portion of the speedtest, this is the output of the vmstat -i command from my PFSense router:

interrupt                          total       rate
cpu0:timer                         29037        151
cpu1:timer                         13165         68
cpu2:timer                         26479        137
cpu3:timer                         12253         64
cpu4:timer                         22329        116
cpu5:timer                         10573         55
cpu6:timer                         23061        120
cpu7:timer                         11436         59
cpu8:timer                         26434        137
cpu9:timer                         24551        127
cpu10:timer                        20072        104
cpu11:timer                        20522        107
cpu12:timer                        17992         93
cpu13:timer                        19231        100
cpu14:timer                        18226         95
cpu15:timer                        19063         99
irq128: nvme0:admin                   39          0
irq129: nvme0:io0                    694          4
irq130: nvme0:io1                    378          2
irq131: nvme0:io2                    599          3
irq132: nvme0:io3                    436          2
irq133: nvme0:io4                    735          4
irq134: nvme0:io5                    543          3
irq135: nvme0:io6                    675          4
irq136: nvme0:io7                    369          2
irq137: nvme0:io8                    595          3
irq138: nvme0:io9                    857          4
irq139: nvme0:io10                   331          2
irq140: nvme0:io11                  1302          7
irq141: nvme0:io12                   425          2
irq142: nvme0:io13                   396          2
irq143: nvme0:io14                   363          2
irq144: nvme0:io15                   541          3
irq147: xhci1                        125          1
irq149: igc0:rxq0                 106842        554
irq150: igc0:rxq1                 149145        774
irq151: igc0:rxq2                 217711       1130
irq152: igc0:rxq3                 194107       1007
irq153: igc0:aq                        2          0
irq154: igc1:rxq0                 330733       1716
irq155: igc1:rxq1                 338179       1755
irq156: igc1:rxq2                 301578       1565
irq157: igc1:rxq3                 316481       1642
irq158: igc1:aq                        2          0
irq159: hdac0                         11          0
irq160: iwlwifi0                       8          0
irq175: iwlwifi0                       2          0
Total                            2278628      11826

.
My WAN interface errors were the following:

.

The hw.igc.max_interrupt_rate: 20000 setting is present in the /boot/loader.conf.local config file. I restarted the PFSense router after saving the file:

.
The Upload speeds are still capped at 140-150 Mbps. Download is unaffected.

stephenw10

Any IN errors on the LAN interface?

Have you tried setting it to 1G so it doesn't link at 2.5G?

steve10240

@stephenw10 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

Any IN errors on the LAN interface?

Have you tried setting it to 1G so it doesn't link at 2.5G?

Yes, I did see IN errors on the LAN interface as the Upload speed was being tested. The errors were increasing very rapidly:

VLAN 100 is the LAN where the speedtest traffic is being uploaded from:

I will try a 1G link enforcement of the WAN interface next.

stephenw10

Is the LAN side auto linked at 1G? What's it actually connected to? If it's a switch are there errors shown there?

You might try an internal interface on a different port with a client connected to it directly to eliminate anything the switch or vlans might be doing.

JonathanLee

@steve10240 that's got some packet loss I am seeing on errors. Have you checked the cables, cleaned the fiber connectors also?

nynx64

Update:

Intel X520-DA2 delivered and installed. Same exact issue with download being fine but upload crawling; but this time (not sure why) pfsense is harping loudly about "Unsupported SFP+ module detected".

Are Inpolex ASF-10G-T not supported? If it was unsupported why didn't the mellanox tell me that? Or is it just unsupported on that intel card and unrelated to the root cause?

Can the ASF-10G-T not negotiation down to 1000base-t? Anyone have a similar setup working with a sfp -> rj45?

Should I try to pickup a sfp module that specifically says it can do it?

I'm kind of at a loss here.

steve10240

@stephenw10 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

Is the LAN side auto linked at 1G? What's it actually connected to? If it's a switch are there errors shown there?

You might try an internal interface on a different port with a client connected to it directly to eliminate anything the switch or vlans might be doing.

I tried limiting the WAN interface to 1G and my download speed is no longer at 1Gbps:

The LAN side is auto-linked at 1gbps and yes it is a switch. The switch is connected to the router on port 0/1. Here are the interface error counters I observed after running show interface errors:

However, running more speed tests did not increment the error numbers for interface 0/1 on the Edgeswitch Lite 24.

For your suggestion, like, directly connecting my laptop to the PFSense router LAN interface, bypassing the switch? I will give that a try and report back.

stephenw10

@nynx64 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

is it just unsupported on that intel card and unrelated to the root cause?

Probably. Though if your WAN is only 1G I would try a 1G RJ-45 adapter. You might also try setting the loader value: hw.ix.unsupported_sfp=1

nynx64

@stephenw10 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

@nynx64 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

is it just unsupported on that intel card and unrelated to the root cause?

Probably. Though if your WAN is only 1G I would try a 1G RJ-45 adapter. You might also try setting the loader value: hw.ix.unsupported_sfp=1

It stopped griping about unsupported sfps but still no bueno.

Guess i'll go looking for a 1g sfp. I know eventually they will be pushing 2 and 5 gig, which is why I was trying to get this sfp to work. Ready for the upgrade etc.

stephenw10

Still in the same motherboard? Can you test that NIC in the other PC you set up.

Something there is very wrong to see that sort of throttling. Those are the sort of speeds you see when something is falling back to half-duplex for example.

Check for a flow-control mismatch. I have seen links where it needed to be set off and also where is needed to be set on

nynx64

@stephenw10

It was the sfp. I purchased https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U77IJ2M, which delivered today.

Running fine back on the mellanox. Gonna hang on to the intel card in case this one dies I guess. It was rather cheap.

Thank you all for the help troubleshooting.

JonathanLee

I was thinking it was the cable or connectors/SFP. At my old job we would have to clean the connectors on Ciena backbone routers and also with lots of other fiber optic routers anytime we touched them. Ciena they had monster MPO cables on them. We even had to photograph the digital scope screen with the cable tips after we cleaned them to put in the work orders as proof we cleaned and checked them. It's that important. A lot of problems we had came back to the cable or connectors as the DB loss at that point is very high. I bet that old SFP is really dirty inside it. We had this installer once who left french fry salt and fry oil all over a cable tip by accident and just jammed it in. That guy was over worked. We had to go back and change the SFP out, and clean all the cables on it.

For my Cisco exam for that job we also had to know all the fiber optic equations for their fiber optic routers too. I was lucky and got to get good training on alot of fiber optic equipment over the many years at that job.

This is a great reference for equations:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/optical/synchronous-digital-hierarchy-sdh/29000-db-29000.html

Long story short make sure you clean the connectors with a fiber cleaning kit. Amazon has really affordable ones that work good. You going to need one eventually. Cisco had this press button connector cleaner one that you just held the cable to and click it would drag the cloth over the tips. I still wonder why it said it was unsupported but it still could use it .

steve10240

@steve10240 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

@stephenw10 said in Windstream fiber -> Adtran 411 -> PfSense slow upload speed:

Is the LAN side auto linked at 1G? What's it actually connected to? If it's a switch are there errors shown there?

You might try an internal interface on a different port with a client connected to it directly to eliminate anything the switch or vlans might be doing.

I tried limiting the WAN interface to 1G and my download speed is no longer at 1Gbps:

The LAN side is auto-linked at 1gbps and yes it is a switch. The switch is connected to the router on port 0/1. Here are the interface error counters I observed after running show interface errors:

However, running more speed tests did not increment the error numbers for interface 0/1 on the Edgeswitch Lite 24.

For your suggestion, like, directly connecting my laptop to the PFSense router LAN interface, bypassing the switch? I will give that a try and report back.

@stephenw10 @JonathanLee
I had to wait until the weekend to take down the Internet at this site for testing. I tried the following interface setups on the Pfsense firewall:

WAN interface on USB-C NIC and Laptop NIC directly connected to integrated i226 LAN, no vlans
WAN Interface on integrated i226 and laptop connected to 2nd integrated i226 LAN, no vlans

In both tests, I was able to pull the 900mbps download and 900mbps upload. When I put back the VLANs on the LAN interface and do intervlan routing with the pfsense firewall, the speed drops back to 140mbps max. I wonder why it's only affecting the upload speed. When the router is intervlan routing, that's where I see the interface errors start going up.