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7. Tips for Non-Windows Users

1) Install DW software as outlined and insure that it works on the Host machine.
2) Install Internet Connection Sharing as outlined in other FAQs and insure that the DW software sees it and modifies your TCP/IP settings automatically. Ignore the part about creating a client disk as it is irrelevant for Mac OS X.
3) plug your host PC into a switch or hub (switch is preferred because of dedicated bandwidth) using cat-5 cabling into an available port (NOT THE UPLINK PORT)
4) plug your client Macintosh into a switch or hub into an available port (NOT THE UPLINK PORT)
5) Create a new NETWORK LOCATION using the "Location-->Network Settings" apple menu item. Name it something..e.g. "EarthStation Router"
6) Insure that "show:" displays "Built-in Ethernet"
7) Click the TCP/IP tab
8) Make the following adjustments:
Configure: "Using DHCP"
IP Address: leave it alone
Subnet Mask: leave it alone
Router: leave it alone (it should say 192.168.0.1
when we are done)
DHCP Client ID: leave it alone
Domain Name Servers: "198.77.116.8"
Search Domains: "direcpc.com" or "direcway.com"
For the other tabs: PPPoE, AppleTalk leave alone
If you want to use the direcpc proxy server,
configure this in Proxies: click Web Proxy (HTTP)
set to 192.168.0.1 port 85 (or Port 83, either should work)(make sure you still have
option turned on on the host or pages won't load!)

9) Click "APPLY NOW" at the bottom. all is done. no restart needed

by forane See Profile edited by seagreen See Profile
last modified: 2003-07-15 12:17:18


Yes!
Download a copy of OMNIWEB browser
Open the following folder:
/(user)/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb

open TextEdit.app
into the "untitled window" paste the following:

OWHiddenPreferences = {
defaultsDictionary = {
AutocompleteFromBookmarks = 1;
AutocompleteFromBrowserHistory = 1;
AutocompleteFromPersistHistory = 1;
/* allows you to choose what sources the "atutocomplete" feature uses */
BrowserAddressAlwaysVisible = 1;
/* whether the (separate) location bar is shown on browser windows */
BrowserFavoritesVisible = 1;
/* whether the favorites bar is shown on browser windows */
BrowserNavigationBarVisible = 1;
/* whether the main navigation bar is shown on browser windows */
BrowserToolbarsVisible = 1;
/* whether the entire set of browser toolbars is hidden/shown */
ShowConsole = 0;
ShowDownloads = 0;
ShowProcesses = 0;
OAShowInspector = 0;
/* whether the Error Log, Recent Downloads, Network Activity, and Info windows */
/* are shown when OmniWeb launches */
"Favorite Preferences" = (General, "Font & Color", Images, Bookmark);
/* a list of which preferences always appear at the top of the preferences window */
OWHTTPUserAgentHeaderFormat = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Mac_PowerPC; %@)";
/* What to identify OmniWeb to web servers as; */
/* the %@ is replaced with OmniWeb's name and version number. */
DocumentationURL = "omniweb:/Help/";
ProductPageURL = "http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omniweb/";
FeedbackAddress = "omniweb4@omnigroup.com";
/* URLs for the items in the Help menu. */
OWCookiePromptDisclosed = 0;
/* whether the cookie panel shows extended information when open */
OWCookiePromptScope = 1;
/* the default state of the radio buttons on the cookie panel */
/* 0 = just for this cookie, 1 = all cookies from this site, 2 = all cookies */
OWCopyLogToStdErr = 0;
/* Whether to also write the contents of the Error Log to standard error. */
/* 0 = don't, 1 = do, auto = only do it when OmniWeb is run from a Terminal window */
SampleBookmarksPage = SampleBookmarks.html;
/* Which file in OmniWeb's localized resource folder to load sample bookmarks from */
OIAnimationMinimumDelayInterval = 0.1;
/* minimum time step (in seconds) between frames in animated GIFs. */
OHImageCellBorderColor = "0 0 0";
/* color to use for borders of unlinked images whose tag specifies a border width */
OHTextDraggingEnabled = 1;
/* set to 0 to disable drag-and-drop of selected text in browser windows */
OWContentCacheMinimumExpirationTimeInterval = 60;
/* minimum cache timeout setting */
OWDirectoryIndexFilename = index.html;
/* filename to assume when resolving "file:" URLs that end at a directory */
OWFTPAnonymousPassword = "OmniWeb@";
/* password to send to FTP servers when logging in as anonymous */
OWFTPSessionTimeout = 120;
/* time (in seconds) to wait for an FTP server to respond before giving up */
OWHTMLNetscapeCompatibleComments = 1;
OWHTMLNetscapeCompatibleNewlineAfterEntity = 1;
OWHTMLNetscapeCompatibleNonterminatedEntities = 1;
OWURLNetscapeCompatibleRelativeAddresses = 1;
/* enable/disable emulation of certain bugs in other browsers */
OWHTTPDebug = 0;
/* corresponds to "show HTTP requests" box in Error Log window */
OWHTTPEnablePipelinedRequests = 1;
/* enables a HTTP/1.1 feature that can make things faster but can confuse some servers */
OWHTTPMaximumNumberOfRequestsToPipeline = 3;
/* max number of requests to chain together when using said HTTP/1.1 feature */
OWHTTPMaximumSessionsPerServer = 20;
/* max number of connections OmniWeb will open with each server */
OWHTTPSessionTimeout = 120;
/* time (in seconds) to wait for an HTTP server to respond before giving up */
OWLibraryDirectory = "~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb";
/* folder in which OmniWeb should look for configuration files, cookie files, etc. */
OWNonProxiableSchemes = (dtd, file, javascript, mailto, omniweb, rlogin, telnet, tn3270);
/* URL schemes which shouldn't be sent to a proxy server */
OWURLFakeRootURLs = ();
/*
URLs to substitute for "absolute" URLs in HTML documents.
For example, adding "file:///Users/Shared/WebStagingArea/" to the list would
allow you to put a web site you're working on in that location and test it,
even if it has links or images in it whose specified URLs begin with "/".
*/
OWShortTopLevelDomains = (com, edu, net, org, gov, mil, int, de);
/*
Children of these domains are autonomous if they have at least two domain
components (e.g. "omnigroup.com"). All other domains require at least three
components to be autonomous (e.g. "omnigroup.co.uk"). You may only set a
cookie on an autonomous domain that matches your server domain: this default
prevents people from setting cookies on "co.uk", while allowing them to set
cookies on "omnigroup.com".
*/
OWHTMLCharsetInMetaTag = 1;
/* whether to use META tags to figure out the character encoding of a document */
OWUseCP1252ForLatin1 = 1;
/* IE uses the windows-cp1252 when it says it's using iso-8859-1. */
/* When this is turned on, we do too. */
"OWTask-Checking bookmarks-maximumSimultaneousThreadsInGroup" = 3;
"OWTask-Checking bookmarks-priority" = 1600;
"OWTask-Saving files-maximumSimultaneousThreadsInGroup" = 6;
"OWTask-Saving files-priority" = 400;
"OWTask-Web pages-maximumSimultaneousThreadsInGroup" = 10;
"OWTask-Web pages-priority" = 1000;
"OWTask-Downloading files-maximumSimultaneousThreadsInGroup" = 6;
"OWTask-Downloading files-priority" = 1200;
"OWTask-DEFAULT-maximumSimultaneousThreadsInGroup" = 32;
"OWTask-DEFAULT-priority" = 800;
"OWTask-Orphans-maximumSimultaneousThreadsInGroup" = 1;
"OWTask-Orphans-priority" = 3200;
/* These defaults are used by OmniWeb's scheduler to prioritize different tasks. */
/* maximumSimultaneous... = how many concurrent tasks of the same type OmniWeb will run*/
/* priority = relative priority for the type of task; lower numbers are higher priorities. */
};

NOW SAVE THE FILE AS "Defaults.plist" in the
/(user)/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb folder and re-launch OmniWeb Browser to enjoy newfound webbrowsing speed.

by forane See Profile edited by seagreen See Profile
last modified: 2002-11-26 15:19:06

YES!

Download a copy of "Broadband Optimizer"
You can search for it at Versiontracker.com

Once you have downloaded it, you will have to modify the startupitems script.

Do the following:
Mount the disk image.
drag the folder "BroadbandOptimizer" to your desktop
open the folder
open the file marked "BroadbadOptimizer" (it should open automatically with TextEdit.app
replace the entire script with the following (cut and paste it)

#!/bin/sh

##
# Broadband Optimizer
# optimize networking for broadband connection
##

. /etc/rc.common

CheckForNetwork

#if [ "${NETWORKUP:=-NO-}" = "-YES-" ]; then

ifconfig en0 mtu 1460
ifconfig en1 mtu 1460
/usr/sbin/sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.sendspace=32768 > /dev/null
/usr/sbin/sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.recvspace=224360 > /dev/null
/usr/sbin/sysctl -w kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=524600 > /dev/null
/usr/sbin/sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=1 > /dev/null
/usr/sbin/sysctl -w net.inet.udp.recvspace=64000 > /dev/null
echo "Network settings optimized for Broadband Connection"

#fi

close and save your work
now put the whole thing into your /Library/StartupItems folder (if you don't have this folder create it, then move the BroadbandOptimizer folder into it...be careful SPELLING AND CASE COUNT (it's unix afterall!))

that's it...each reboot will automatically change your MTU and window packet size....just like DrTCP!

If you would like to set things up without the use of third party software, check out this FAQ from the All Things Macintosh Forum.


Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
  • How up-to-date is this information? Does it still apply with the latest satellite technology?

    2015-03-11 14:07:38 (Mikofox See Profile)

by forane See Profile edited by seagreen See Profile
last modified: 2002-11-26 15:19:46

YES!
Two things must be done, separately....
1) You must configure the MTU to be 1460.
2) You must change Kernel extensions to manage TCP/IP packet sizes.

MTU
1) Start Terminal.app
2) sudo (login as rootuser)
3) type "ifconfig en0 mtu 1460" for your hardwired ethernet port and type "ifconfig en1 mtu 1460" for your airport connection if utilizing this one
4) now its time for the kernel extensions...

Kernel Extensions
1) Start Terminal.app (if you closed it between steps"
2) sudo (login as rootuser if you closed the above session)
3) type the following
sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.rcvspace=224360
sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=1
4) that's it quit the terminal.app and enjoy faster downloads.

Downside to this is, you have to type this each time you reboot the machine.

You should also check out the All Things Macintosh FAQ for more Macintosh details.

by forane See Profile edited by seagreen See Profile
last modified: 2002-11-26 15:20:16

If you disable RFC-1323 in your tweak settings you should get downloads that don't hang. RFC-1323 enables both window scaling and time stamping. Time stamping is the problem and causes downloads to hang. The problem still, is that you will be disabling window scaling which really helps your download speeds. Without it your download speed is cut in half but at least you will get consistent downloads. This problem does not occur in OS9.

by Orygun4 See Profile edited by seagreen See Profile
last modified: 2002-11-26 15:21:09

These settings substantially speed up linux as a client to a shared satellite connection.

Two way system:

Place the following in /etc/rc.local or /etc/boot.local depending on your linux distribution.

echo 224360 >> /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_default
echo 224360 >> /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max
echo 64 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_default_ttl
echo 0 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps
echo 1 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_sack
echo 1 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling
ifconfig eth0 mtu 1460

Note:
Try these settings first. If you find that your download speeds are at or over 1,500kbs with these settings, then change 224360 to 474280, so that you can get the full download speed potential available to you. If your speeds are ALWAYS below 1,500kbs, raising your rmem any higher than 224360 won't help, and may actually hurt your connection speed. Some people have also gotten better download speeds with a MTU of 1500 rather than 1460


One way system:

Place the following in /etc/rc.local or /etc/boot.local depending on your linux distribution.

echo 134900 >> /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_default
echo 134900 >> /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max
echo 64 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_default_ttl
echo 0 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps
echo 1 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_sack
echo 1 >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling
ifconfig eth0 mtu 1460

Note:
Some people have also gotten better download speeds with a MTU of 1500 rather than 1460

by celtictiger See Profile edited by seagreen See Profile
last modified: 2002-11-26 15:20:45