line noise or ISP trouble
From some Dos email programs I am still using I see all email passing by on the screen and see when the download is stuttering. I would like to have something analogue on SuSE. Just seeing my email moving in or out. I am now using
I am running SuSE 8.1 on my PII with an external 56K US Robotics modem. I am aware of the low quality of my telephone connection. It is noisy and I blame it for a lot of slow downloads. But I also know that sometimes my ISP is very busy and that it is using one of the three telephone numbers for gaming. What I want to know if SuSe has a possibility to let me find out what is causing the slowness of my email and other downloads. It would be nice to know in advance if my telephone is noisier as usual and which of the dial up numbers gives the better chance of a unproblematic connection. I can of course wait until one or two o'clock every night to use my modem but I really need some sleep some nights ;-). I am using Gkrellm in order to see if any activity is going on on my modem during the connection. Kinternet is for me also an indication that the connection is working. Are there other possibilities to keep an eye on what is going on during a session with my isp? postfix and fetchmail but they work somewhere in the background and I have no chance of seeing what is happening. -- NTReader v0.36w(P)/Beta (Registered) in conjunction with Net-Tamer.
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 23:05:47 +0700 Constant Brouerius van Nidek <constant@indo.net.id> wrote:
I am using Gkrellm in order to see if any activity is going on on my modem during the connection. Kinternet is for me also an indication that the connection is working. Are there other possibilities to keep an eye on what is going on during a session with my isp? From some Dos email programs I am still using I see all email passing by on the screen and see when the download is stuttering. I would like to have something analogue on SuSE. Just seeing my email moving in or out. I am now using postfix and fetchmail but they work somewhere in the background and I have no chance of seeing what is happening.
I just tested a program called pkdump http://pkdump.sourceforge.net/pkdumpage.html It labels itself as a port-scan-detector, but it will show in realtime all traffic on ppp0. I would watch you firewall logs too, maybe someone is trying to access your machine over a dialup line, and that will really make things seem like it slows down. Run a dedicated line from your modem to the phone connection point in your house, and avoid all connectors, use a straight line, preferably with shielded phone cable. Route it away from all electric motors, flouescent lights, etc. -- use Perl; #powerful programmable prestidigitation
The 03.06.27 at 23:05, Constant Brouerius van Nidek wrote:
I am using Gkrellm in order to see if any activity is going on on my modem during the connection. Kinternet is for me also an indication that the connection is working.
I call wvdial directly from an xterm, so I see the output like this: --> Modem initialized. --> Dialing Teleline . --> Sending: ATDT908200290 --> Waiting for carrier. ATDT908200290 CONNECT 50666/ARQ/V90/LAPM/V42BIS --> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately. --> Starting pppd at Wed Jul 2 10:53:08 2003 --> pid of pppd: 2376 --> pppd: Using interface ppp0 --> pppd: local IP address 81.41.201.153 --> pppd: remote IP address 80.58.197.105 --> pppd: Script /etc/ppp/ip-up run successful --> Default route Ok. --> Nameserver (DNS) Ok. --> Connected... Press Ctrl-C to disconnect --> pppd: Terminating connection due to lack of activity. --> pppd: Connect time 16.3 minutes. --> Disconnecting at Wed Jul 2 11:09:28 2003 You see the speed of the connection: 50666 bps, which is not bad. Sometimes it goes below 33000 (not V90, then). You can also check some log files. pppd logs to "/var/log/localmessages" (I forgot the exact number). The firewall goes to "/var/log/warn". Mail logs to "/var/log/mail", and in my case, also to "/var/log/mail.debug". If the quality decreases after connection is established, I'm not sure I would see it there. Perhaps increasing verbosity (syslog debug level).
Are there other possibilities to keep an eye on what is going on during a session with my isp?
I keep an eye on the mail logs on an xterm with tailf (not "less", nor "tail").. For line noise, I would check your cabling (internal, inside your home). Look for cable connections: the best should be soldered, well insulated, and dry. One of those connections caused me on a very wet day (85% humidity) to loose connectivity. I could hear the noise just by unhooking the phone - after repairing, I got a very clear dial tone. Also, good quality plugs are gold plated: if not, they could oxidize. As for shielding the phone line... not really an issue, unless you are inside a industrial building with huge motors or electric ovens. See, the line to the central exchange can be kilometers long, so a few shielded meters will not make that big difference :-)
From some Dos email programs I am still using I see all email passing by on the screen and see when the download is stuttering. I would like to have something analogue on SuSE.
I see that on "/var/log/mail.debug", assuming you use "fetchmail" with the "-v" option. I think SuSE defaults to placing all that info in "/var/log/mail". I modified "/etc/syslog.conf" file like this: #mail.* -/var/log/mail mail.notice -/var/log/mail mail.debug -/var/log/mail.debug The "mail.debug" file can grow very large, so logrotate has to be adjusted.
Just seeing my email moving in or out. I am now using postfix and fetchmail but they work somewhere in the background and I have no chance of seeing what is happening.
Almost everything is logged :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
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