[pptp-server] PPTP is so slow !

[Olivier Thomas]

Hi,

I am using a linux box as PPTP server to connect to my LAN from outside with
W2K client.
I want to access a W2K file server on the LAN and I connect with a regular
56K modem.
I don't need to install Samba on the linux box because I access the server
directly by entering it's IP.
Doing ftp and telnet is OK but as soon as I want to browse the folders with
windows explorer it becomes very very slow. It takes more than 25 seconds to
make files appear in the right pane ! And when it's working, explorer is
freezing of course.
I tried different things to solve that :
- First I upgraded to PoPTpop 1.1.2 but it didn't change.
- I ping the linux box from W2K with -f and -l option and I detected that
MTU more than 1370 didn't for fragmented packets/ So I added the two lines
MTU 1370 and MTU 1370 to my pppd.conf file. I even tried with smaller MTUs.
So I really don't know what the problem is or if it's a normal behaviour due
to the poor nature of SMB protocol.
My linux box is just a P100 with 48Mb RAM running RH6.2 and PoPToP 1.1.2
with MPPE CHAPMS-v2 (I applied the patch).

Could some of you report me some success with the same configuration ?
All advises are welcome.
If I can not fix that I am thinking about 2 other alternatives:
- mounting the W2K file server shares directly on PPTP server and installing
samba.
- using directly the PPTP server of W2K server (if there is one). Some
firewall/NAT issues may however occured.
Are they good ideas ?

Thanks for your comments,
O.