network speed incorrectly reported in System Monitor using VPN

[candtalan]

looks similar to bug #957617

When using a VPN and monitoring up and download speeds shown in System monitor (ubuntu 12.04), then the indicated speeds are much greater than they apparently should be. When VPN is stoped and normal connection used, then indicate speeds are as expected.

[candtalan (aeclist)]

screenshot - using VPN speed shown is high

[Robert Roth (evfool)]

By "the indicated speeds are much greater than they apparently should be" do you mean the network speed axis labels (1-5 MB) or the receiving speed (957 KiB/s vs 598 kB/s shown in Firefox)?

[candtalan (aeclist)]

Hi Robert
The axis labels seem appropriate to the speed value apparently seen by system monitor. It is th eapparent speed value seen by system monitor which is too large. To keep th einitial report simple, I did not mention the similar apparent inaccuracy in system monitor indication of upload speed also, in fact it was the upload speed being (incorrectly far too large that brought my attention to this - I am using VPN for the first time and running (Ubuntu, floss) torrents in Transmission. With VPN the upload speed is shown as say, 90 (ish) but I have set the global up speed to be limited to 45. It was my concern that I had either lost control of the upload speed, or thatsomehow VPN was throwing a very fast upload capability. My ISP doe not traffic shape at all, and also I could not can not see why a VPN should cause a large increase in what should be a controlled speed of upload. My expected max upload speed should be just over 100, say 120 (ISP says currently - Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1.072 / 7.407)

My conclusion fwiw is that Transmission seems to report correct (upload ) speeds (set to say 50) when VPN is used, but System Monitor seems to give incorrectly high indications, and also not steady values either.

If more screen shots or even if a live view somehow could help let me know please?

[candtalan (aeclist)]

I have just compared with KNemo, and to a visual approximate assessment, one could say that (under VPN conditions) the System Monitor is indicating about a factor of 2 overspeed. A bit broad brush, an d need to use squinty eyes of course. Any reason in System Monitor algorithms or code for a x2 to be relvant when VPN is used?

[Trung Ngô (ndtrung4419)]

KDE's KSysGuard is displaying the same problem and I found out that it's showing the sum of network traffic on all available interfaces (including both the normal WLAN's wlo0 and VPN's ppp0), hence the doubling. I suspect GNOME System Monitor is doing the same thing.

[Andy Sayler (andy.sayler)]

This also seems to be an issues in 15.04. The system monitor appears to double network throughput when using a VPN (likely because its adding the VPN interface throughput to the underlying wlan/eth interface throughput, effectively double counting it). Confirmed with OpenVPN (via Network Manager plugin) on Ubuntu 15.04.

[Bannaz (raidofdarkness)]

BTW THE BUG IS 5 YEARS OLD?!!!!

THE CAUSE IS TUNNEL TRAFFIC; ITS BEING COUNTED!

DON'T COUNT IT PLEASE!

VERY SIMPLE!

[David Young (sciguy16)]

This bug also affects systems with VLAN interfaces. System Monitor will add the traffic on the VLAN to the traffic on the physical interface, again doubling the measured traffic.

[gpothier (gpothier)]

Still happens on 17.10

[gpothier (gpothier)]

Still happens on 17.10. Reported upstream: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=789303