Giving web browsing top priority over torrents

[maxwolfie]

How do I set this up with QoS?

Basically, I want everything to take precident over P2P/BT traffic.... I've tried fiddling with the "Percent Bandwidth At Capacity" variables (anywhere from 40%, to 85% for fastest, AKA Internet browsing) and it's still very slow with a torrent being downloaded on my machine (and probably on others' machines)

How can I set it up so that web browsing will almost bring torrents to a halt, i.e. when browsing, 90% + of the bandwidth is allocated to browsing (and therefore taken away from torrents). However, when browsing bandwidth is no longer required, I want torrents to take up the rest of the bandwidth again.

I assume that the DL QoS is more important that the UL QoS, however I will set variables for UL too, as UL is also required for browsing (though not as much)

Possible?

[Eric]

First, the upload is more likely to be your limiting factor than the download. Typically, you get much lower upload bandwidth than download.

Second, one issue that can cause problems with QoS (especially with bittorrent), and on a small home router is that you're dealing with a whole bunch of connections at once. The overhead (CPU/RAM) for a lot of connections can slow EVERYTHING down, even though the allocated bandwidth is high. Try setting the allowed number of TCP connections (see Firewall/Connection limits) to a lower number.

After that, just try setting the "Percent Bandwidth At Capacity" to a really high value for port 80 connections, and really low for bittorrent.

[maxwolfie]

Cheers - It's on 4096 (four oh nine six - looks like a % sign though )), what should I set it to? Assume we have one very light user, one medium/heavy and one heavy.

Also, what if i set the services as follows:

85%
5%
5%
5%

[DoesItMatter]

What router are you running this on?

On my Fonera 2201+, I set the settings to 1024/360/180
for the connections page.

My Fonera 2201+ has 8MB Flash / 16MB Ram / 200MHZ cpu

Even with only 1/2 the upload bandwidth used, I was maxing out
the router with about 300+ connections.

I had 6 linux dvd images downloaded and set to seed as well to
try and test the load on the router.

With those settings, even with plenty of bandwidth left, the
router was struggling to keep up.

Broadcom's will run a little faster than the Atheros chipsets.

Try for your settings, 1024 / 180 / 180 and see how it works.

[maxwolfie]

Cheers mate

I'm using a Linksys WRT54GL


Should I keep the above settings that you've posted?

[DoesItMatter]

Try the above settings I posted.

Also, when you do your torrents, make sure you set the max
upload limit for all the torrents to no more than 1/2 of your
total upload bandwidth.

I.e. if you have 5 torrents going, and 512kbs upload bandwidth,
make sure the 5 torrents TOTAL upload is around 256kbs upload.

That allows plenty of bandwidth for any other internet traffic.
It sounds backward, that you have to preserve upload bandwidth
but its necessary to send replies and acknowledgements.

Try all this out and see how the setup performs.

[maxwolfie]

Cheers, I was hoping to set those kind of limits (QoS shaping depending on app/port) from the router though, not from each client

[DoesItMatter]

Well, the main testing is to see whether or not the router can
handle all the load as well.

Most home routers were not made to handle a whole lot of traffic.
They just don't have that kind of power.

The slowness you might be experiencing may not be bandwidth
related, it could be the router is getting overloaded.

That was why I was suggesting limit bandwidth on the torrents on
each PC first, and then see how other internet browsing/access
is working all around. If you have the torrents limited and you still
see slowness with regular internet, you may be overloading the
router with too many connections. If the router is much more
responsive and internet is better, then work with QoS again.

Even with DD-WRT, which has been around for quite a while, its
recommended to adjust speed limits on the individual torrents
before trying to have the router do that work.

[FRiC]

Unfortunately, I notice on the WRT54GL, if there are a many torrent users, it would lock up, even if I limit the number of connections.

No such problems with the WL500GP that has double the RAM...