Internet speeds through smoothwall server

[Badaz52]

Hi everyone,

 

This may/may not be normal behavior but we notice that our internet speeds for users that go through the smoothwall box are significantly slower than those admin users that go direct to the upstream proxy for their connections.

 

For example:

 

Direct - 58mbps DL

84mbps UL

 

Smoothwall - 25-30mbps DL

84mbps UL varies can be as low as 10mbps

 

Is there anything I can check in smoothwall or is this just considered normal becuase of the extra processing/filtering etc.

[mrwoberts]

Any chance you could draw us a better picture of how things are setup.

 

When you say, upstream proxy, would the Smoothwall connections also be passed on to that upstream proxy???

[Badaz52]

Yes that's correct, our admin staff go direct to the upstream proxy our students and teachers so through smoothwall which in turn passes this onto the upstream.

[mrwoberts]

Interesting, I'm now just wondering what Smoothwall is doing since it has to pass the traffic to a second proxy.

What features are you using in Smoothwall?

How are the clients told to interact with Smoothwall? Proxy/DNS?

[DSapseid]

I had my smoothwall pointing at a second proxy server when my broadband line was through my lea and had no issues at all.

 

I've always found the support at smoothwall to be great and whenever i have had an issue that i couldn't get my head round i have phoned them and they will work with me to resolve, normally involves them using teamviewer to connect to a machine so they can check the settings.

[deano]

Turning features on Smoothwall will slow speeds, such as decryption/layer 7 etc.

 

Also worth mentioning what’s running the Smoothwall. If it’s an appliance, then they they throughout maximums depending on model used

[PyROm]

Could the upstream proxy be set to limit bandwidth per user, and it is seeing smoothwall (and therefore all users going through smoothwall) as a single user?