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Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-16 23:03
by Deepcuts
Hello

I have a strange problem with my FileZilla client.

I have two locations with 1 Gbps internet, same provider.
Number of hops between the locations is 3.
Both locations using 1 Gbps links.
Using "Require explicit FTP over SSL" seems to be limited to max 100 Mbps.
While using standard FTP, without any kind of encryption, the speed is between 60-80 MBps.

I have checked the resources on both machines and everything checks out. CPU usage is low, RAM usage is low.

Any clue what might be causing this limitation while using "Explicit FTP over TLS"?

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-17 00:28
by boco
Are you sure it's limited to 100Mbps? FileZilla displays speeds in MB/s.

1 Byte = 8 bits

1Gbps=125MB/s, when overhead and congestion is taken into account 100MB/s is a good speed.

As for the difference to plain FTP, in plain FTP there is no encryption and the firewall/router will do deep-packet inspection, slowing the stream down.

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-17 08:45
by Deepcuts
Hello boco,

I am sure.
100 mbps might be a good speed, but I am paying for 1 Gbps and would like to use the speed together with some security (using TLS)
As I stated, the CPU is on the low low, so encryption is no problem, resource wise.
I know the math and the fact that FileZilla shows the speed in MBps and not Mbps.

Both machines are connected directly to the internet, without a router.

Still, the question remains: why while using TLS, the speed is capped at 100 Mbps and without TLS I can get full 1 Gbps?

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-17 09:14
by Deepcuts
Switched to SFTP.
It seems that enabling compression in SSH did the trick.
Still not as fast as plain FTP, but that is to be expected.
Now encrypted SFTP is only about 10 % slower, if not less, than FTP.

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-17 12:13
by boco
I just meant that FileZilla displays speeds in Bytes per second. You are paying for 1 Gigabits per second. That is, divided by eight, 125 MegaBytes per second. In the other direction, 100 MegaBytes shown in FileZilla are 800 Megabits as your ISP would show.

Maybe you just fell victim to that conversion problem. :)

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-17 20:23
by xeon
Deepcuts wrote:Hello

I have a strange problem with my FileZilla client.

I have two locations with 1 Gbps internet, same provider.
Number of hops between the locations is 3.
Both locations using 1 Gbps links.
Using "Require explicit FTP over SSL" seems to be limited to max 100 Mbps.
While using standard FTP, without any kind of encryption, the speed is between 60-80 MBps.

I have checked the resources on both machines and everything checks out. CPU usage is low, RAM usage is low.

Any clue what might be causing this limitation while using "Explicit FTP over TLS"?
Which FTP server software are you running?

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-17 20:36
by Deepcuts
Xeon: using proftpd.
boco: I stated 100 Mbps, not 100 MBps, meaning maximum 12.5 MBps. In my tests without compression and SFTP, more like 7-8 MBps.
If the speed was 100 MBps, I would not have been "upset" at all :)
Indeed, I fell victim today. I was shoot at paintball from close range. BASTARDS!

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-17 20:42
by xeon
Deepcuts wrote:Xeon: using proftpd.
boco: I stated 100 Mbps, not 100 MBps, meaning maximum 12.5 MBps. In my tests without compression and SFTP, more like 7-8 MBps.
If the speed was 100 MBps, I would not have been "upset" at all :)
Indeed, I fell victim today. I was shoot at paintball from close range. BASTARDS!
I'm not sure about newer versions, but some older versions of proftpd actually had low throughput via FTPES for some reason.

I'd boot up some Linux distro (unless you already run Linux on the client-end) and use cURL to try grabbing a large file via FTPES.

Re: Explicit FTP over SSL limited to 100 mbps

Posted: 2014-05-18 00:29
by boco
boco: I stated 100 Mbps, not 100 MBps, meaning maximum 12.5 MBps. In my tests without compression and SFTP, more like 7-8 MBps.
If the speed was 100 MBps, I would not have been "upset" at all :)
You wouldn't believe how many users confuse bits and Bytes. Just wanted to get that out of the way.