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P2P Traffic Shaping For Home Use?

Posted by kdawson on from the just-say-rst dept.

An anonymous reader writes "My housemate uses an aggressive P2P client, that when in use makes the Internet unusable for everyone else connected to the network. After hearing about various ISPs shaping traffic to reduce P2P traffic, I was wondering if there was a solution for managing P2P traffic on a home network. I have a Linksys WRT54G available for hacking. Can Slashdot recommend a way to reduce the impact of P2P on my network and make it usable again?"

6 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. How about ask? by Alioth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about just nicely explaining the problem to him, and requests he runs his P2P stuff overnight when no one is using the connection?

    If that doesn't work, well, his port on the switch might mysteriously fail during waking hours.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  2. Talk to your housemate by Dolohov · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously. An arms race is not going to solve your problem.

    1. Re:Talk to your housemate by ozamosi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When I use bittorrent, I like to squeeze out as much bandwith as possible. However, I don't like when others get annoyed.

      To fix the annoyance, I would have to limit my bandwidth usage at some times of the day - and I wouldn't just have to limit my usage according to when the other tenants are awake, and according to when they use how much bandwidth, but also according to how much bandwidth my ISP feels like giving me today (my ISP is seriously bandwidth starved).

      If my router had good QoS, I wouldn't have to worry about annoying others, while still being able to use all spare bandwidth. I would definitely prefer this solution.

  3. All major clients, but it still requires talking.. by Nerobro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love how people pimp their own client. But nearly every PTP client I've touched, has bandwidth limiting. Some of them, uTorrent included, allows you to schedule your bandwidth.

    The real problem here isn't traffic shaping, but about traffic courtesy. Your housemate may not know how much trouble their causing. Talk to them. Get them to set their max speeds to 1/2 or 1/4 of the available bandwidth.

    They may be surprised when their OWN web browsing gets better.

    Yet this does all hinge on you talking to said housemate. Go talk. I've had the "talk" and been the person talking to the housemate. It usually works out well.

    --
    You would have to be crazy to be sane in this world. -Nero
  4. The social problems: eating it cause it's there by Televiper2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Honestly, this is the reason ISPs are moving toward throttling, packet shaping, and simply capping the bandwidth. There's a minority of bit torrent users hoarding the bandwidth so that they can hoard piles and piles of movies, music, and games that they have no reasonable expectation of using. "hey check it out man, I have the entire Simpson's series dubbed in Japanese!"

    --
    New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
  5. Don't use software to solve social problems... by rit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The best piece of professional advice I ever received was this:

    "Don't use software to solve social problems"

    This seems pretty apt here - instead of spending money and time trying to do this the hard way....

    Just fucking smack him, and tell him to behave responsibly or lose his internet privileges.