Why is the download of my USB3 5Gbe network adapter slower than upload on RPi4 ubuntu 20.04 server and limited to 1Gbit/s download but 2Gbit/s upload?

Question

I have connected a QNAP QNA-UC5G1T 5Gbe usb network adapter to a raspberry pi running Ubuntu server 20.04.5 LTS. I also have a 5Gig fiber internet connection and a 10G switch and 10G router and get around 4Gbit/s speed both Download and Upload on Ubuntu desktop normally.

I had to enable this adapter as the eth1 interface by editing the file in /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml like so by adding an eth1 entry

sudo nano /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml

network:
    ethernets:
        eth0:
            dhcp4: true
            optional: true
        eth1:
            dhcp4: true
            optional: true
    version: 2

Then running

sudo netplan apply

It is only allowing under 1GB/s speed download, more like 750Mbits/s, but is reaching nearly 2GB/s upload on eth1. I am testing this with speedtest-cli for the speed estimates.

Further, when I run

ip a show eth1

It outputs a qlen of 1000, which it should be 5000

3: eth1:  mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:11:22:33:44:55 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet XXX.XXX.XX.XXX/XX brd XXX.XXX.XX.XXX scope global dynamic eth1
       valid_lft 85855sec preferred_lft 85855sec
    inet6 xxxx::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx/xx scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

And ifconfig

eth1: flags=4163  mtu 1500
        inet XXX.XXX.XX.XXX  netmask XXX.XXX.XXX.0  broadcast XXX.XXX.XX.XXX
        inet6 xxxx::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20
        ether 00:11:22:33:44:55  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 4195  bytes 992272 (992.2 KB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 47  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 4107  bytes 595608 (595.6 KB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

This shows a txqueuelen of 1000

But when I run

ethtool eth1

It outputs and clearly shows link modes of 5000baseT/Full, and Speed: 5000Mb/s

Settings for eth1:
    Supported ports: [ TP ]
    Supported link modes:   100baseT/Full 
                            1000baseT/Full 
                            2500baseT/Full 
                            5000baseT/Full 
    Supported pause frame use: No
    Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
    Supported FEC modes: Not reported
    Advertised link modes:  100baseT/Full 
                            1000baseT/Full 
                            2500baseT/Full 
                            5000baseT/Full 
    Advertised pause frame use: No
    Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
    Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
    Speed: 5000Mb/s
    Duplex: Full
    Port: Twisted Pair
    PHYAD: 0
    Transceiver: internal
    Auto-negotiation: on
    MDI-X: Unknown
Cannot get wake-on-lan settings: Operation not permitted
    Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
                   drv probe link
    Link detected: yes

And when I run sudo lshw -C network

I get

  *-network:0               
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 2
       logical name: eth0
       serial: 55:44:33:22:11:00
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=bcmgenet driverversion=v2.0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII
  *-network:1
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 3
       bus info: usb@2:2.1
       logical name: eth1
       serial: 00:11:22:33:44:55
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=aqc111 driverversion=22-Aug-2005 duplex=full firmware=3.1.6 ip=XXX.XXX.XX.XXX link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair

My network:1, or eth1, clearly shows a limit of capacity of 1Gbit/s, and shows capabilities of max 1000bt-fd.

I have figured out how to update the qlen attribute of the ip a show eth1 to be 5000, and the txqueuelen of ifconfig eth1 by "Configuring the udev rule in the file "/lib/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules" to the following:

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add|change", DRIVERS=="aqc111", ATTR{address}=="00:11:22:33:44:55", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1", ATTR{tx_queue_len}="5000"

The above instruction comes from the suse support docs found here: https://www.suse.com/zh-cn/support/kb/doc/?id=000019932

Now on reboot, both ip a show eth1 and ifconfig eth1 show the updated 5000 attribute. But the sudo lshw -C network command still shows the capactiy as 1Gbit/s and the highest capabilities is still 1000bt-fd.

Is there a way to update these values output by lshw -C network, so that the adapter can go above the 1Gbit/s amount on download? And why is upload going at around 2Gbit/s and not limited by the capacity of 1Gbit/s like downloads?

I should note that the drivers for this network adapter come included in Ubuntu server and Desktop. I have also tried installing the most recent drivers on the Marvell website and that does not change anything. They are the aqc111 drivers.

I have also been able to get this working on Ubuntu desktop as expected, without any special configuration, just plug and play. I ran the speedtest just now and got about 2.2Gbit/s download and nearly 3.5Gbit/s upload on Ubuntu Desktop 20.04.5.

But for some reason am having a hard time figuring out if there is a way to increase the download speed on Ubuntu server.

Thanks in advance

Why is the download of my USB3 5Gbe network adapter slower than upload on RPi4 ubuntu 20.04 server and limited to 1Gbit/s download but 2Gbit/s upload?

0 Answers