--- michael dolan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >I also wanted to point out that a server's > proximity > >to you (Baton Rouge area) does not mean it is > faster. > > > > > Yeah (I live a block away from LSU and they were > really bad), but isn't > this generally true? When given a list of servers > you can download a > file from, shouldn't you choose the one closest to > you? In a perfect > world, you would choose the fastest or least busy, > but without that kind > of information...
Unfortunately, no. It really depends on which backbone your ISP is on. I'm glad you raised this question because the answer involves a very interesting area of IT, namely network backbones. I don't know a whole lot about it, but I do know that ISP networks are not "meshed" or equidistant. Your ISP could easily get its Internet service or connection from far away as Dallas. So, your connection to LSU could be taking a very long route around the Internet to travel one block. I guess the best place to start would be to introduce the traceroute command. First, I do a 'whois lsu.edu' command to find out the nameservers for LSU: (blah, blah, blah,...) Name Servers: BIGDOG.LSU.EDU 130.39.244.8, 130.39.198.8 OTC-DNS1.LSU.EDU 130.39.3.5,130.39.254.5 OTC-DNS2.LSU.EDU 130.39.254.30,130.39.244.30 Next, I start a traceroute to bigdog.lsu.edu [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~ $ tracert bigdog.lsu.edu Tracing route to bigdog.lsu.edu [130.39.244.8] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms 192.168.1.1 2 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms adsl-pool-209-124-225-254.eatel.net [209.124.225 .254] 3 17 ms 16 ms 15 ms eatel-gw1.eatel.net [209.124.193.254] 4 15 ms 16 ms 15 ms xdsl-gw2.eatel.net [209.124.193.246] 5 22 ms 22 ms 23 ms 500.Serial5-11.GW8.HOU7.ALTER.NET [157.130.135.1 25] 6 22 ms 24 ms 24 ms 0.so-2-0-0.XL2.HOU7.ALTER.NET [152.63.101.166] 7 30 ms 30 ms 29 ms 0.so-1-0-0.XL2.DFW9.ALTER.NET [152.63.98.25] 8 29 ms 31 ms 30 ms POS7-0.BR1.DFW9.ALTER.NET [152.63.98.133] 9 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 204.255.168.230 10 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms dal-core-01.inet.qwest.net [205.171.25.45] 11 38 ms 65 ms 50 ms iah-core-02.inet.qwest.net [205.171.8.126] 12 37 ms 35 ms 36 ms iah-core-03.inet.qwest.net [205.171.31.42] 13 51 ms 50 ms 51 ms atl-core-01.inet.qwest.net [205.171.8.146] 14 51 ms 51 ms 50 ms atl-edge-17.inet.qwest.net [205.171.21.190] 15 * * * Request timed out. 16 * * * Request timed out. 17 * * * Request timed out. 18 * * * Request timed out. 19 * * * Request timed out. 20 * * * Request timed out. 21 * * * Request timed out. 22 * * * Request timed out. 23 * and I get tired of waiting for it to reach bigdog.lsu.edu, so I killed the traceroute. Maybe there's a network problem out there today? Note that I am using Eatel in Gonzales, who apparently uses Alternet out of Houston, who apparently has an uplink in Dallas, who apparently gets service from Qwest, who apparently has an uplink to someplace called IAH and then from there to Atlanta, ... So, you see my point. But even so, if you had really big pipes between you and LSU, you wouldn't really care, would you? ;) So, the time delay for network requests are due to a couple of factors, among others: number of hops between you and the target server, and the bandwidth of the connections. Now, I'm not a network engineer and I could be very wrong about the above, but this is what I understand to be the case from previous experience. Could somebody more knowledgeble about Internet networking chime in? ===== John Hebert Official BRLUG Linux Curmudgeon Open Source Ankle Biter __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
