Enabling DHT Hoses the network

[Lazybones]

This doesn't seem to be a problem with Azureus but enabling it in uTorrent completely hoses my network.. I think it has to do with how many connections and how fast it makes them.. Ping times on my network go from 100 to 1000 or higher with it enabled.

I think something it is doing is overly aggressive or needs an unadjustable setting for some networks.

I run a WRT56GS with DD-WRT and have optimized the connection timeouts, in fact I had done that before finding uTorrent. I am not sure if this is a new problem in 1.6 as I have run uTorrent for a while now but never noticed such a huge impact on my network..

Also disabling DHT seems to do nothing until you restart uTorrent, but there is no prompt indicating that it is necessary.

[Firon]

UDP is connection-less.

Also, try Thibor instead of DD-WRT.

[Lazybones]

Already have a WDS setup with DD-WRT and mixing versions of firmware tents to cause problems. This also seems to be a recent problem.

Of hand would it be possible to continue a download in version 1.5 to see it 1.6 is the issue? Or where there incompatible changes introduced between these versions? This seems to be a recent problem, and I don't think I have dowloaded much of anything since upgrading last so this might be the first time I noticed the issue.

[Lazybones]

Is there a place that hosts older versions? I can't seem to find 1.5 anywhere.

[Firon]

Really, I just blame DD-WRT, because I use Thibor and have no such problems (same exact router).

[wiley_one]

although i can tell from the conversation that i dont know nearly as much as either of you about the routers and such, i can tell you that recently i noticed that my connection on every other computer in the house hooked up to the network slowed tremendously whenever i had bittorrent on. i could find no solution for this (i run on a wrt54g v5 router), i had the ports forwarded correctly and my client set to using less than 30% bandwith so that it never interfered with other's connection speed too much. the normal speed for my network without running utorrent is 3Mb/s, and recently with the client open it drops to roughly 400 KB/s when the torrent is only using 100KB/s with both up and down connections.

then i saw this thread and checked it out, i disabled UDP connections and restarted my client, now using the same amount of bandwith with the client the other computers only drop to 1.8Mb/s. a fairly large difference.

im not sure why this worked, and so am basically asking why this would make a difference at all (it shouldnt, should it?).

im hoping my personal experience helped. (and just in case it is asked connection speed for bandwidth is in megabits and speed for utorrent is in kilobytes, i do understand the difference.)

[Lazybones]

Not everyone can run a specific firmware, and DD-WRT IS one of the recommended ones right in the FAQ.. I prefer its feature set to Thibor unless Thibor has MASSIVELY improved since the last time I used it.

Again, the problem is only when DHT is enabled, and only with uTorrent. Azareus with its DHT seems to work fine.

Connections was the wrong word to use for DHT, but it is still making requests that the router needs to NAT.. I suspect it is doing so in an overly aggressive manner.

[Firon]

Try Thibor 15c. I didn't really find anything special in DD-WRT, except maybe the multiple SSIDs with v24.

and I don't recommend DD-WRT anymore, refresh the FAQ.

[Switeck]

wiley_one said: "the normal speed for my network without running utorrent is 3Mb/s, and recently with the client open it drops to roughly 400 KB/s when the torrent is only using 100KB/s with both up and down connections."

It is extremely unusual for home internet connections to have 100 KB/sec or more useable upload speed. Chances are, you're not overloading the download side but the upload side is pushed near enough to its limits that all other connections through the router/modem suffer.

[wiley_one]

sorry if that was somewhat unclear but what i meant was 100KB/s overall, meaning if i have a 30KB/s download rate i have a 70KB/s upload rate, i dont think its ever gotten to much more than 70KB/s on either down or up. besides i try to keep the ratio 1:1 if at all possible.

though i do know that when i first started using bittorrent i never limited my speeds and always had a poor download for it (but pretty nice upload speed, to the point that when i finished a torrent my share ratio would be over 5).

[Switeck]

You NEED to limit upload speed to no more than 80% of your connection's max upload speed.

If others are doing time-intensive internet tasks such as VoIP or realtime online games, set it even lower.

Use Speed Guide (CTRL+G) to choose the closest match no faster than your connection's upload speed.

[Lazybones]

Again, it doesn't matter what settings I use on the router, or what I limit uTorrent to enabling DHT hoses the network every time.

Again I ask, is there a link some where to older versions like 1.5, as I don't think this was a problem in 1.5 and if that is the case there is a bug or change in 1.6 that is causing the issue.

If 1.5 has the same problem, then I will re flash my router, which is a huge pain in the ass, because I run other services behind it and have a pile of static IP assignments and port forwards.

BTW: DD-WRT 23 has the option to change the connection limit and connection time out right in the web UI.

[Lazybones]

I really like how small the uTorrent application is, but I have gone back to using Azureus for the time being as there are no apparent network issues while using it and nearly identical settings.

I really think there is a problem in the DHT implementation, that I am sure impacts a significant number of users.

Guess I will check back next release.

[ericepp]

If you use the speed guide to select your upload speed uTorrent will automatically calculate the 80% for you. Beware - it also changes a few other connection, and per torrent based settings as well.