Interaction between ACC and Upload rules

[dsalch]

Hi Guys,

I would like to better understand any possible interaction between the results of ACC and upload bandwidth controls when using QOS.

Here is my situation... I am on rural wireless. The download BW is fairly consistent, but upload struggles. I use my feed for online video streaming (outbound). I have rules set up to give the video stream a minimum and high percentage of bandwidth on congestion.

But

The upload is only settable once, I "pay" for 3MBs but get anywhere from 1MBs to 2.5MBs when all is quiet on my side. Therefore, where should I set my max upload bandwidth setting? AND, will the ACC detect any conditions that will affect that? Is there such a thing as outbound ACC ?

Thanks for your time!

[pbix]

ACC only works on the download side.

QoS still works on the upload side if the total bandwidth is set appropriately. Unfortunately in your case since your available bandwidth is variable you would have to select the lowest number to get effective QoS.

Sorry to bear the bad news.

[dsalch]

Thanks for the reply...

So is the bottom line that QOS in general does not take any effect until the "total bandwidth" point is reached?

Its tough then, with variable bandwidth of the rural remote wifi systems... There seems no way to effectively set any QOS rules at all since they would never "activate".

I suppose the same problem would exist in situations where upstream bandwidth (shared with other users) is the bottleneck. That is another one of my problems... with a 100mbps local link but only 5mbps of available bandwidth fed into that link from the ISP, it seems logically impossible to do anything on my end of the link to improve things. All I would be doing is lessening my burden on others by activating QOS on my end.

Am I seeing this properly?

[pbix]

QoS is the only thing you can employ in your case to provide fair and reliable service. Its not as good on the upload in your case as the download but your assumption that QoS would never activate is incorrect.

You would benefit by reading some here
https://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/doku.php?id=qos

You have not mentioned any actual problems you are facing so its hard to suggest how QoS could benefit you. If you don't have any problems just leave QoS off on both links.

[dsalch]

Sorry for being vague. I'll be more specific...

My immediate problem is supporting bi directional video feed for my job. I need consistent 1 to 1.5 mb in both directions with minimal loss and jitter. That's the goal.

The challenge is that I now use rural radio internet, which is really just extended wifi. The difference is that I have a fairly stable local link, of 100mbps. The local link is discreet to my house. Ping time reflect occasional noise and such but have no relation bandwidth usage.

My provider now offers 3mbps in both up and down, but in practice the download fluctuates between 1 and 8, upload fluctuates between .5 and 4 . But the fluctuation is not on my link, it is in available bandwidth to or inside the ISP. The level of sharing in these systems is extraordinary. Basically one feed shared among a dozen towers with a few dozen users each.

It seems to me that qos would be helpful in controlling sharing between computers in my house, and that would be very helpful. But with such wide fluctuates at the ISP I can't figure out how to configure it.

I suspect this reperesents a new challenge for qos. The situation is reverses so that high handwidh is at delivery but highly shared at the source. Therefore, qos at my end , if it used acc to monitored the ISP gateway where sharing occurs, would just limit me to benefit my neighbors.

Thoughts?

[dsalch]

Continuing more investigation, I have dome some extensive testing this morning. It does appear to be no direct relation between ping times and throughput. Even if the ping times are against an outside site (google.com) , the ping times do not reflect the increase / decrease of bandwidth to my feed.

I set up a series of simultaneous and continuous pings, starting with my router, my wifi radio link to ISP, isp internal routers, isp gateway, and outside site. Then did a series of downloads / uploads while monitoring the ping times and reported bandwidth on the gargoyle router gateway. The throughput at my router gateway (WAN ip of router) would fluctuate between .5 and 4 mbps but the ping times would randomly fluctuate between 10ms and 300ms inside the isp, and 30ms and 300ms outside isp. But the ping times do not directly match the fluctuation in bandwidth.

So, I dont know how the ISP is limiting bandwidth, but it does not seem to affect ping timings. Any ideas on how this is possible? I expected it to be limited at their gateway, but doesn't seem the case, at least not directly. I do a see very general increase in ping time (more a wider range of fluctuations) under heavy load then not, but it is so slight as not to represent the change in bandwidth.)

As for ACC during the testing, max bandwidth set at 4000kbps, link limit said 3500kbps and ping target is google.com. Filtered ping times never reached the point to activate ACC, even if the line load as maxed out at 2500kbps. So again it appears that the ISP is limiting bandwidth in a way that does not affect ping times. I tried multi threads of large (50MB+) downloads but link load would not increase above about 2500, with ping times hovering around 50ms avg (very near normal)

[pbix]

It's true that there must be a relationship between ping times and bandwidth for ACC to work. I also have no idea how it could be otherwise so you have a mystery on your hands.

You might try making your ping server the same as the site you are uploading/downloading from. Its not a solution but it might provide some clue. Also QoS should be off when performing such tests.

SInce radio links are involved I wonder if you are suffering from packet loss issues more than congestion issues due to radio interference.

Sorry we cannot be more help.

[dsalch]

Actually, It seems I was wrong! There is a relationship between ping time and bandwidth, but its really hard to find! The ISP is arranged with wireless links connecting towers that each extend wireless to end users. There is a fiber gateway, but at the end of a string of towers from me. So my bandwidth goes through several hops, and each hop is a wireless link, and at each hop it picks up more bandwidth from additional customers local to that hop.

So... there is a relationship between my own ping time and bandwidth used, but it is effectively buried under the random packet loss and link conditions between my gateway and the ISP gateway about 6 hops away. When I look very closely at averages, I can see the average ping time increasing with bandwidth. But it is incredibly hard.

Max speed, middle of the night, is about 6mbps each direction. That drops to as small as 2 to 3 mbps daytime, and as low as 500kbps evenings.

So.. given this info.. I am trying this arrangement: use ACC but set it at the max of 6mbps, and let it decrease as necessary during the daytime, then increase again at night. I think the newer firmware would be better for this???

For upload, it is a challenge! If I set it at 6mbps to get max speed, there seems little to any control over bandwidth. When I set it down to get good control, the bandwidth is severely limited. Trying a middle of the road approach at about 3mbps, and it seems to be OK most of the time, but not perfect.

I wish there was an equivalent to ACC for upload! My reality is that the wide fluctuations prevent gargoyle QOS from operating effectively on upload. So, MY QUESTION... is there any way to dynamically change the upload max bandwidth setting.. OR even some way to create a relationship between download max BW set by ACC and upload max bandwidth?

for instance... since I am streaming like streams in both directions simultaneously... it might make sense to have a rule like:

as ACC changes max bandwidth, use that percentage of change applied to max upload bandwidth setting. If download ACC detected bandwidth is 50% of the setting, then apply that 50% to the upload max bandwidth setting.

I would LOVE to test that sort of logic! As long as the application running uses up and down simultaneously, and the rule is applied as percentage of max, it seems like a quick fix to a situation such as mine where the current logic fails to make upload QOS effective.

????

[Lantis]

ACC can only control to 15% of your initial bandwidth. Setting to 6000 means it will only go as allow as 900kbps which is almost double your estimated lowest throughout. This will cause you a problem.

You could setup cron scripts to adjust your bandwidth for you. It’s not a great solution though.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7445#p31197

You would need to rewrite the qosmon source code to achieve the last bit of your question I think.

[dsalch]

Thanks for the info! I had never considered using a script to change settings.. brilliant!

So here is the follow on question... if it is possible to set parameters from a script, is it also possible to "read" the current settings?

for instance something like this... a cron script that reads the current ACC fair load limit and uses that to set the QOS upload max bandwidth ?

It would be a real pain to also set the ACC ping time limit, which changes fpr most every reset, but I suppose its possible (may take multiple resets to get it into a useable range)

thoughts?