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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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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.