[ale] need help allocating / limiting broadband bandwidth between users

Ron Frazier (ALE) atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com
Fri Jan 25 12:54:47 EST 2013


Hi James,

You have a point about what the switch can and cannot do.  However, it will essentially give my wife's pc access to all my upstream bandwidth if it tries to demand it, putting my stuff temporarily on hold if need be.  My new router has a real time bandwidth display.  I temporarily disconnected my pc's from the wireless and attached her system to my new router.  Even with me vigorously moving the mouse and scrolling the system she's remote controlling, her pc only used ~ 110 Kbps upstream and 220 Kbps downstream at most.  Obviously, that would change if she's doing big downloads.  Installing the switch was a lot easier and somewhat cheaper than installing another router at the central junction before the internet.  I think it would be really hard for her system to saturate a 6 Mbps uplink.  So, for what I need it to do, I think this will work very nicely and hopefully stabilize her work environment.  If I have to, I can always revisit the QOS settings on my new ASUS router and add some upstream bandwidth restrictions for myself, but I don't think I'll have to.  I'm already limiting my total download bandwidth to 68% of my total capacity, so her PC has the rest, so that should be OK too.

Sincerely,

Ron


James Sumners <james.sumners at gmail.com> wrote:

>On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 3:47 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE)
><atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
>> Next, I wanted to make sure my PC equipment wasn't hogging the
>download
>> bandwidth.  I got the ASUS RT-N16 gigabit wifi N 300 router, which I
>will
>> have all my equipment log into.  If you get this router, you HAVE to
>upgrade
>> or replace the default firmware.  The original firmware is terribly
>slow, to
>> the point of being almost unusable.  I upgraded to ASUS's latest,
>which I
>> think they call AsusWRT.  I don't know if it's in any way related to
>DD-WRT
>> or not.  In any case, it has features which can be used to control
>both
>> upload and download bandwidth.  This is the first off the shelf
>router I've
>> found which has downstream bandwidth control.  I ignored the upload
>> settings, since my switch will handle that.  Here's how I set it up
>to limit
>> the download bandwidth of everything coming through my router.  Doing
>this
>> makes sure that her system will have a few Mbps of download bandwidth
>no
>> matter what I'm doing.
>
>Your switch has no clue what your incoming or outgoing bandwidth
>capabilities are, unless it has some configuration you didn't mention.
>The only way to effectively manage your ISP connection is to pretend
>like you have less bandwidth than you really do. Thus, you are
>pretending like you control both ends of the link. So, you figure out
>your maximum download and upload speeds without QoS restrictions and
>then reduce the figures by 10 - 30%. Thereby giving your QoS
>implementation some overhead to work and keep your link unsaturated.
>
>> I go to the qos screen of the router admin system.  On the automatic
>mode
>> page, I turn qos on and tell the system that I have 6 Mbps of upload
>and 20
>> Mbps of download bandwidth.  I then go to the user defined priority
>page.  I
>> ignore the upload bandwidth settings.  On the download bandwidth
>settings, I
>> set all packet priorities to use no more than 68% of my available
>download
>> bandwidth.  This leaves at least 32% of my download bandwidth for my
>wife's
>> use, no matter what my stuff is doing.
>>
>> I then go to the user defined qos rules page.  I delete the rules
>that they
>> have there.  I create a new rule to apply to all traffic as follows:
>>
>> Name: All Traffic
>> Source IP / MAC: blank
>> Destination Port: 1:65535
>> Protocol: any
>> Transferred: 0~  (If used, this field allows certain rules to kick in
>only
>> when a certain amount of data is transferred.)
>> Priority: Medium
>>
>> This sets every packet going through my router to Medium priority. 
>Based on
>> the priority rules set on the other screen, all these packets can use
>up to
>> 100% of my upstream bandwidth.  However, the prioritizing switch
>won't let
>> that happen.  For upstream data, my wife's packets will always take
>> priority.  These rules will not let my downstream packets take up any
>more
>> than 68% of my downstream bandwidth.
>>
>> For times when she's not working here.  I have a second router
>attached to
>> the switch for myself which has no bandwidth restrictions.  I can use
>that
>> when I want to do large downloads, etc.  All my equipment will be set
>to
>> automatically log into the bandwidth restricted router unless I
>manually do
>> otherwise.
>>
>> Hopefully, all these things will keep her system humming along
>quickly and
>> her employer happy.  They wouldn't like too much downtime.
>>
>> Thanks to all who responded for their suggestions.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ron


--

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(To whom it may concern.  My email address has changed.  Replying to former
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Ron Frazier
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linuxdude AT techstarship.com




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