QoS advice

[mistamojo]

First of all I'd like to thank Eric and Co for this awesome piece of software, very much appreciated and great job all around.

Just seeking a bit of QoS shaping advice, I've got a few plans as to how to tackle my set up, but I'd like to hear wiser minds than mine give some pointers.

Our set up is: Netcomm nb5plus4 bridged to
Linksys wrt54gs 1.1
Ethernet cable running to my computer
4 computers connected via wireless

I've got everything set up properly in terms of quotas, and static ip addresses, and everything is recording as it should. I've been playing around with the software for about a week now, trying to get the hang of it.

My question is how would you guys advise as the best way of setting up the QoS shaping. I've seen someone suggest (somewhere) that i can set up each computer by ip, and allocate 20% per class @ max capacity. Ideally this would be the easiest, and I tried it out, but the default service seemed to be throwing it off.

The other option is keeping the default set up within the router upon install, and kinda adding specific stuff as I go. This route seems a bit more fiddley, but thats fine once its set up dont have to worry about it.

My main worry is that one of the people that live use some sort of p2p program, but the QoS classes arent picking it up. I can't figure out how or why, but this program will just take up to 98% of the available bandwidth - and thus being the main reason I've had to set all this up in the first place.

I can shape the QoS upload fine, but the download stream ports are all over the place - sometimes 9931, 15550, 55678, etc etc. So the shaper treats it as if its a webpage and allocates it to 'fast' or 'faster'.

Thanks for bearing with me, and thanks in advance for any help you may be able to throw my way

[pbix]

The idea allocate each computer a IP address and then give each 20% seems natural to me. What do you mean "the default service seems to be throwing it off"?

1) Make a static IP for each of your computers.
2) Make a unique upload and a download class of each computer such as "124_Quota, 125_Quota, 126_Quota etc".
3) Make Qos Rules so that IP address are directed to the appropriate classes.
4) Check the connection list to make sure the connections are being assigned to the proper classes.
5) Make sure your Total bandwidth is set at least15% below your link speed.

Should work fine.

[mistamojo]

Thanks for the speedy response Pbix.

Well firstly our main problem is patchy internet, so setting my bandwidth @ -15% capacity is impossible we consistently drop to 1kb/s for hours at a stretch, and this causes problems with the QoS distributor.

Ok, the assigning by Ip this is definately how I would rather set this up, cos these p2p programs the people use are driving me nuts. I'll go into greater detail as to what I did and why I think maybe it wasn't working.

First of all I made 5 entries in QoS Download Service class, One for each computer name, and gave each one 20% @ capacity bandwidth. Then I made a classification rule for each ip and assigned it to the appropriate computer name. What I meant by the default service throwing it off, I had to set one of those computer names as the default service, so I set it to mine.

However when people connected in the morning, it stalled the entire network, and from looking at the QoS distributor, it looked like everyone was trying to allocate their bandwidth to my computer. I turned off the QoS and the internet instantly clicked on.

The bugger about doing this at the moment, Is quite often I will try something, and then things stop working - and I don't know if its user error, net stopped working, or a stupid p2p program hogging the bandwidth.

One of the girls uses 'PPstream" or something, and from looking at the graphs and pie charts, even with QoS allocation, its not uncommon for her computer to chew up to 95% of the bandwidth. And the program uses basically all of the upstream bandwidth as well.

IS it possible for programs to be set to take higher priority? Cos I don't understand this - if it is my computer and one other, our computers share 50/50. Soon and she jumps on, its 90/10.

[pbix]

I have a couple of observations.

1) If your WAN service drops to 1kbps for hours at a time as you say you need to get a new WAN service. Dialup is 54kbps. Perhaps you made a typo. What is the range of the WAN service you get?

2) For QoS to work you will have to set your maximum bandwidth to 15% below your lowest WAN service level. This sucks I know but it is the fact. If you don't do this your QoS will only work when your WAN service level drifts to 15% above your bandwidth setting. What I mean by QoS working is that your sharing rules will be observed. Not working means its a free for all with no rules.

3) Why don't you start by making a default class which allows 80% utilization and then one class for yourself with 20%. Then make a rule to get your computer's traffic assigned to your class and everyone else falls into the default class. That way you can learn how to use QoS without killing everyone's connection. Observe the connection list to make sure all your traffic is going into the your class. If you cannot get this to work then your next step is to post screen shots of your QoS page and your connection list here so I can see them.

4) What version of Gargoyle are you using? Is your WAN connection PPPoe or DHCP or what?

[mistamojo]

Hey mate,

Sorry i didnt mean 1kbps, I meant 1 kilobyte /sec. When the service drops, we get a range of 1-5 KB/s (i realise i used the wrong symbol kb not KB). So yeah the wan connection sucks, and we've actually lost all connection altogether now, so I'll get back to this post once we have a service resume.

Thanks for your help so far, hopefully I'll be fairly soon to get a handle on this

[mistamojo]

update*

We're still trying to get our ISP stuff sorted out, this is really taking forever. I'll resume my queries once we get a steady internet connection up and running.