[ale] iptables traffic mgmt

[Jim Popovitch]

Every now and then (while working on too many things at the same time) I
suddenly need to do something over the internet that has (IMO) a higher
priority than anything else I am working on.  The important task could
be anything from ssh to vpn related to ssh.  I want to develop a script
that would take all existing connections and use iptables to
de-prioritize them (not necessarily QoS) by reducing their network
bandwidth utilization so that my new important (temporary) task can
proceed.  For instance, right now, I am patching a win2k host with MS
Office patches and backing up my laptop to a remote host over a vpn.
But now I need to connect to a remote system and do some quick tests.  I
don't want to stop the office update, nor the backup, I'd just like to
slow down their network utilization so that my remote session (VNC over
a vpn) isn't majorly affected.  Ideally I'd run a script that built a
list of "top" connections, then used iptables to throttle them somehow
without breaking those connections.  Any ideas on how to go about doing
this?

-Jim P.