Need Help With LAN!!!

[DemonusAE]

I run a network in one of the departments of my University. I am a strong believer of file sharing and I also understand that depending on the situation... the rules can be bent alittle.

There is a total bandwidth equivalent to 4 T-1 lines being routed to my department. Most of that bandwidth has to be used for things like VTC ( Video Tele Conferencing ) and the transferring of information between serveral graphic applications.

I have 3.088 mbps dedicated to a subnetwork on a seperate VLAN composed of 24 ports. Spanning Tree is turned off. I'm using 2600 router and 2950 switch.

My problem... the subnetwork is dying. For some reason I'm getting to much broadcast information.... that's one problem. The other is that the bandwidth is being used but people are telling me they are barely downloading anything. I'm guessing that those "search more" applications that people are using are congesting the path.... then again I'm not sure. Any help for me out there?

[Kyle06]

Originally posted by DemonusAE
I'm guessing that those "search more" applications that people are using are congesting the path.... then again I'm not sure. Any help for me out there?

Well if everyone has that search more function on to search till they tell it to stop then yes that might be the problem wait for someone else to respond with more smartness towards this :P

[Aaron73153]

What ports are being used the most, also check the logs of where the broadcast traffic is going, i'd bet some money that there's some spyware phoning home.

[DemonusAE]

I can remotely examing which applications are using which ports on the computers within the subnetwork...but so far I haven't found anything unusual. I'm thinking about doing some further subnetting and create 4 VLANS with 6 ports each and 768kbps each. That way I won't have to shut everyone down when troubleshooting. Still looking into the "search more" applications....

[Winphuk]

Originally posted by DemonusAE
I can remotely examing which applications are using which ports on the computers within the subnetwork...but so far I haven't found anything unusual. I'm thinking about doing some further subnetting and create 4 VLANS with 6 ports each and 768kbps each. That way I won't have to shut everyone down when troubleshooting. Still looking into the "search more" applications....

Good idea. that'll give you more broadcast domains. Hope it works out.

[aqlo]

Do you have shareaza users?
(we over-query)

Yes anyone with "search more" on on any number of progs will over-query a bit, but nothing like us. We're the best!
http://www.zeropaid.com/shareaza/

[DemonusAE]

Users that use this network just have to plug in their labtops to the RJ-45, I have seen no more then 2 shareaza users on at any given time. Most are using Kazaa and Kazaa Lite.... but I block all the spyware at the router level....minimal Kazaa users anyway. Some DC++ and Imesh....that's all I have seen at any given time.

[aqlo]

demonus if you are patient the creators of those programs have the answers about query rates and will read your thread here. I'm doing a forum search my way but I suggest you also try one for yourself if you haven't already.

This may take more time than you expect though, we can't all know everything at once.

In the k-lite forums find a post by random nut and search off of that if you want to know everything about k-lite there is to know for example

[DemonusAE]

Thank you for all your help....finally figured out what was wrong. The broadcast information was coming from the switches themselves. They were flooding the lines. The backup battery I have them on is malfunctioning so there are variations in voltage. Everytime the voltage would change, the switches lost their MAC Address Tables...but it was happening so fast I didn't notice. The broadcasts were the switches updating their tables over and over again. I'm still going to keep the VLAN configuration because it will make monitoring the network alot easier.

Just one more thing...thinking about limiting the network to just 1 maybe 2 file sharing applications....any suggestions as to which one and why?

[Winphuk]

I would say for one that emule is good because you can limit the bandwidth.Shareza I'm not sure about but Im looking into it.
Good luck wwith your Cisco gear.

*edit* I just checked, you can limit the bandwidth with shareaza.
I think with the gear you have, you probably wont need to limit file sharing programs.I'd say just let people use whatever, and if there are bandwidth hog problems, then use programs that limit bandwidth.

[aqlo]

put em all on k-lite current version and with no sharin
because its clean lite no funny stuff
let em use shareaza with g2 only
maybe (I'm prejudiced)

But no, not really, there's a lot of good programs, I don't see a need to block them out so long as you can keep your bandwidth managed.

[mliesenf]

There is a total bandwidth equivalent to 4 T-1 lines being routed to my department. I have 3.088 mbps dedicated to a subnetwork on a seperate VLAN composed of 24 ports.
Very nice. It kinda sucks that you are limited to that though. In my department I think that we have a gigE or a 10gig fiber. It may not be the best idea to use p2p at the network owned by your university. If they wanted to be anal then they could sue you.

[DemonusAE]

What kinda of broadcast traffic do you have and how do you know that it's "dying". What are you seeing? Have you done any sniffing?

Keep reading the thread dude, somewheres alongs the end it tells you what was wrong with the network.

[Omyn]

LAN parties are awsome.

Always hold my own lans on the weekends :]

[DemonusAE]

Funny you should mention that mliesenf.

http://www.zeropaid.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=15403