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Traffic Shaping on DSL?
jackla asks: "I'm now looking for software to do traffic-control on my Windows XP box. I am connected with DSL and my upstream is capped at 96kbit/s (down is 1.5Mbit/s) - this means that high(>70kbit/s) upstream utilisation KILLS my downstream: it just drops down to about 400kbit/s and stays there unless there's more upstream space. That said, I read alot about the Linux shaping solution (wondershaper or something) which sounds exactly right, except I need something that works for Windows. What I want to do is prioritize upstream ACKs (for example) so that my downstream isn't affected by upstream use.
If anyone heard of a peace of software that can do this, I would love to hear about it." It would be nice if something like this existed cheaply for Windows. I am unaware of such, but maybe a few of you have ideas. Could such a traffic shaper be built using low powered computers? If so, how would you build and configure it so it would maintain compatibility for the single Windows machine, behind it? (Think: homebuilt traffic-shapping appliance)
Are you a server, business or home user? I understand that you want as much bandwidth as possible, but if you are just a home user, 400 kbit down stream is not bad at all.
To answer your question directly, my solution would be to buy a cheap box (like say, the Mandrake boxes from Wal-Mart) and use it as your traffic shaper. Linux products for this are much cheaper than any (useable) solution you can find for windows.
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... has a Tweak Test that tests some connection settings such as your RWIN. I had the exact same problem as you and it turned out that my RWIN was set wrong and once I fixed it, the problem pretty much went away. Try it and I bet it helps.
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Don't know if it is his provider or his hardware, but my cablemodem connection does the same thing. And it seems to be dependent on the cablemodem hardware.
When I first got my cablemodem connection, it was with an older hybrid cablemodem. Got about 1.8mbit/sec downstream, and about 500kbit/sec upstream, and I could use all of that upstream and it didn't affect my downstream at all.
About a year after signing up for the cablemodem, my ISP "upgraded" their network, and I got a new cablemodem. DOCSIS 1.0 (1.1?) 3Com USRobotics Cable Modem CMX. It maxed out at about 2.2mbit/sec downstream, but only about 256kbit/sec upstream, and now, when I use all of the upstream, my downstream drops to about 350kbit/sec. (I say "maxed" because I think they dropped the max downstream to about 1.5mbit/sec 6 months ago, a year after I got the new cablemodem.) The computer connected to the cablemodem did not change at all, so this was purely from the cablemodem change.
So I would also be interested in something that can prioritize the packet ACKs, since the cablemodem doesn't seem to do it itself anymore.
I do tend to regard this as a hardware issue with the cablemodem. From reading this, you can probably understand why.
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I dunno. When I hear stuff like this is think of what happens when you start running traffic through a full-duplex NIC on a half-duplex LAN. If a full-duplex machine on the network starts sending/recieving traffic from the net, it's gonna seriously affect your throughput. I always suggest that people check through all their machines for full-duplex OR 100Mbit when using a 10M hub or a low-end 10/100 switching hub.
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I believe that it is due to ADSL's asymmetric nature. An ADSL connection has an upstream and downstream speed, such as 1.5MBps vs 128kbps. I think the connection is NOT duplex, so when you are sending upstream, you cannot be recieving downstream. So if you upload at 64kbps, you are effectively using HALF your bandwidth, limiting your downstream speed to 750kbps. i.e. if you are transmitting half the time, you can only recieve half the time. So if you use too much of your upstream bandwidth, you can bring the downstream to a crawl.
I believe you are using a commercial OS, so there must be a way they can help you. At least I think a great support system must be reason you are paying for your OS, isn't it?
Good luck
You don't need traffic shaping. Just make sure your TCP receive buffer size is 15 time larger than your TCP transmit buffer size, and the ACKs will be sent in a timely manner.
Works perfectly for me. Disadvantage is, that this is a setting you must set on all machines.
The latency is -- most likely -- caused by the huge buffers in the modem. It *is* possible to improve the situation locally. It's got nothing to do with asymetric lines or somesuch.
It's simple: what happens is that the upstream buffer in the DSL modem does'nt prioritize traffic at all, most likely it's just FIFO and big. So if the buffer is 128kB and you're serving a big file, your next Telnet packet is going to have to wait for these 128kB to go up before going itself.
The solution: have a router that artificially limit the outgoing bandwidth to slightly less that the DSL line permits to make sur the modem's buffer never fills up. Then it's the router's buffers that are filling up; but your router is smarter and you can have it order packet. IE if you have 128kB worth of warez0r waiting to go up, it can decide to let that lone Telnet packet go first.
Me I installed Wonder Shaper, works very well esp. when you've identified what causes the contention (just add the relevant ports to the junk traffic list), even if I completely saturate the link. There's one thing that doesn't work tho: I discovered that at times I had huge ping, again, even with wshaper. What happens (*I think*) is that my ISP is getting overloaded at times, and my actual bandwidth goes below what I set it to in Wshaper. I have to find a way to improve this.
Like others said, get a cheapo box throw two ethernet cards in it, load Linux, and use it as a router. I have this setup myself, along with 4 Windows machines behind it.
Believe me, I sleep better at night, knowing that I have Linux between the Internet and my Windows boxes. There are a number of good firewall/proxy/router tools for Linux. You can then use the traffic shaping software, and more importantly, you don't have to worry about the constant security weaknesses found in Windows that make your machine an easy target for hackers.
The solution is easy. Quit using Direct Connect to leech your movies. Because there's no way to limit the upstream bandwidth within the program it always kills your downstream bandwidth.
Switch to overnet. www.overnet.com It uses hash tables like eDonkey so that files can't be faked by (insert your favorite __AA here) and it's serverless like Gnutella.
Check it out with the files at www.wic-net.org limit your upstream bandwidth to 5 or 10k less than your maximum, and enjoy.