Partitioning Bandwidth Using Mac OS X?

dasboy has this query: "I was wondering if anyone knew of away to partition bandwidth amongst a group of computers running Mac OS X? I have a [few Macintosh machines] at home all on the same LAN and all on the same Internet connection. One of these machines is used by my daughter when she's home from school. The biggest problems happen when she begins downloading large files (I'll let you guess what she downloads <grin!>). I was wondering if there are any cool BSDish ways of constricting the amount of bandwidth her computer uses?"

Comments

Wonderful

[entrylevel]

I haven't tried it yet (1.5Mbps is plenty for all those on my home LAN), but you might want to give Throttled a shot. Certainly not the easiest to use (no GUI), but it is open source and cross platform (Linux/BSD/OS X). Basically it runs a server process that you enables bandwidth throttling in your kernel's firewall. The configuration file is simple enough to understand and is quite flexible. You can change also settings while it is running by sending it signals using the not-so-aptly-named 'kill' command in the terminal.

try these?

[RalfM]

CarraFix might do the trick, or maybe Throttled X

Ralf

IPFW and Dummynet

[Graff]

You can do this by setting up a firewall in the Terminal. Follow the instructions posted here, replacing the contents of the rc.firewall.current file with the following commands:

#!/bin/sh
ipfw add 1000 pipe 1 ip from any to any
ipfw pipe 1 config bw 300Kbit/s queue 50KBytes
ipfw add allow ip from any to any

Doing this should limit the connection to 300Kbit/s. If you want the connection faster or slower you simply need to change the 300Kbit/s number. 56Kbit/s should be approximately the speed of a 56K modem. The last number probably should be scaled appropriately to the first number, that is if you cut the first number in half then cut the second in half.

To learn more about pipes and dummynet, read the manpages for ipfw with the following command in the terminal:

man ipfw

Too bad

[batobin]

**sigh**

This is the 4th young girl I've heard about this week succumb to the evils of Richard Simmons videos. Which is her favorite? The "Disco Blast Off", or the "Best of Latin Buns Burning"?

Or is it....no....it couldn't be...."Getting Dirty with the 80s"? Oh, the humanity!

Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

...have you tried talking to her about it? :)

Bandwidth Throttling

[Patrick Lewis]

One solution is to say GET OFF THE DAMN COMPUTER!

Well, that's what my Dad would have done.