Bandwidth Throttling

English Network/Internet
1

Good day there.

I’ve been working in OpenSuse for close to a year now at the office and the only thing that’s stopping me from ditching MS is a network bandwidth control program. This program I can configure internet badnwidth useage and speed on my network so that the network is never crippled by any one user.

My pc has 2 network cards, one connected to a router and the other to a switch upon which the other PCs are connected. The other PCs will run a variety of operating systems thus all settings besides fixed ips should be done on mine.

This program also gives me recent network activity per pc as well as a summation of daily bandwidth useage.

From research I’ve deducted that you can configure the bandwith throttling and internet sharing via the iptables though I’m not quite sure how you can do it. I would like to know is there an application that will give a similar features on the storage and retrieval of bandwidth reports (not that necessary) and more importantly what would be the best way to go about implementing the bandwidth throttling.

Just for anyone that would like to know, I have very slow internet connection (384kb ADSL) with a 6GB cap.

Another bonus would be if there is any suggestions as to how a person can get past port shaping implemented at the ISP’s side (Total bonus).

Thanks in advance

2

Another bonus would be if there is any suggestions as to how a person can get past port shaping implemented at the ISP’s side (Total bonus).

Change ISP. Only looser providers do that. May depend on your location in the world.

There may be some packages to do as you describe. Or you could configure it in a router - if you use one.

Maybe some others will have some ideas. I’ll have a look around though.

3

Traffic shaping is done using Linux tc (traffic control). The gruesome details can be explored starting here:

Linux advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO

An easier way is to use a Linux distro that is specialised for being a router/firewall. For example IPCop can do this and with some addon packages you can have traffic shaping and accounting. Other distros worth looking into are Smoothwall, Endian Firewall, Clarkconnect, Untangle and this by no means an exhaustive list.

4

Hi
You could look at implementing snmp on your machine, plus the other
pc’s in the network to get ethernet stats (see who the bandwidth hogs
are). You could then use the data to graph in a spreadsheet.

This document may be of help as well;
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/ADSL-Bandwidth-Management-HOWTO/

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.0 x86 Kernel 2.6.25.11-0.1-default
up 12:03, 1 user, load average: 0.03, 0.03, 0.03
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 173.14.12

5

Thanks all for replying.

I’ll be reading some of those documents that has been posted throughout this week and try implement it this weekend most likely.

I will not install a firewall distro as the routing PC is also my main PC on which I work and I do like the OpenSuse set of packaged software.

And to put record straight, it’s not truelly the ISP that is enforcing the port shaping or the limited bandwidth, but rather the Telecoms company that has a monopoly on all internet traffic that goes out of the country I’m in. We are getting another optical line going out managed by a second telecoms operator at about this time next year. I’ll have to see what that company’s approach is going to be in respect to the port shaping.

I’m still open to suggestions as to what options I have for my network configuration and monitoring.

6

And to put record straight, it’s not truelly the ISP that is enforcing the port shaping or the limited bandwidth, but rather the Telecoms company that has a monopoly on all internet traffic that goes out of the country I’m in.
Talk about Big Brother. That sucks big time.