The Linux Advanced Routing and Traffic Control HOWTO is the best reference I've found yet for the principles of traffic shaping. Try this section in particular for the explanation you're asking for:

http://lartc.org/lartc.html#AEN691

yes I had the IP set and it didnt go to the voip queue till i checked off the ACK box…weird

Almost every dhcpd can do static leases. If you want to use pfsense for that you will be fine…

The trafficshaper in 1.2.3 is not MultiWAN-capable.
You might consider taking a look at 2.0 (which is beta).

Actually… the traffic shaper wizard fails to create rules correctly.  So I guess I'll file a bug report, and have to manually create rules, which in 2.0 I have no freakin' clue how to do.

Any help on describing the strong and weak points for each scheduler would be nice though.

I just bought a magicjack myself. I ordered a thin client which won't use much power.
Go to http://www.magicjacksupport.com/ and click on the buy/sell directory. A user there sells preconfigured thin clients for about $50. His handle is alpman.

@dubwise:

The 1.2.x traffic shaper will not work for more than one WAN and one LAN interface.

I suspect their might be some room for a workaround, but I don't have a box to play on at the moment so I'll just shut the heck up. Sorry for the noise.

can you tell me how to get the packet rate and packet size? i did a pfctl -vsq
$ pfctl -vsq
queue root_le1 on le1 bandwidth 720Kb priority 0 {qwanRoot}
  [ pkts:          0  bytes:          0  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  qwanRoot on le1 bandwidth 720Kb priority 0 {qwandef, qwanacks, qGamesUp, Http_up}
  [ pkts:          0  bytes:          0  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  qwandef on le1 bandwidth 7.20Kb qlimit 500 hfsc( default realtime 7.20Kb )
  [ pkts:    1165495  bytes:  863547699  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/500 ]
queue  qwanacks on le1 bandwidth 273.60Kb priority 7 hfsc( realtime 72Kb )
  [ pkts:    281417  bytes:  18368398  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  qGamesUp on le1 bandwidth 273.60Kb priority 5 hfsc( realtime 20Kb )
  [ pkts:      49416  bytes:    5935378  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  Http_up on le1 bandwidth 144Kb priority 4 hfsc( realtime 8Kb )
  [ pkts:      11495  bytes:    7940269  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue root_le0 on le0 bandwidth 6Mb priority 0 {qlanRoot}
  [ pkts:          0  bytes:          0  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  qlanRoot on le0 bandwidth 6Mb priority 0 {qlandef, qlanacks, qGamesDown, http_down}
  [ pkts:          0  bytes:          0  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  qlandef on le0 bandwidth 60Kb qlimit 500 hfsc( default realtime 60Kb )
  [ pkts:    1001094  bytes:  366194265  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/500 ]
queue  qlanacks on le0 bandwidth 60Kb priority 7 hfsc( realtime 600Kb )
  [ pkts:    407090  bytes:  23785904  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  qGamesDown on le0 bandwidth 1.20Mb priority 5 hfsc( realtime 30Kb )
  [ pkts:      96985  bytes:  62311033  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]
queue  http_down on le0 bandwidth 1.20Mb priority 4 hfsc( realtime 200Kb )
  [ pkts:      62172  bytes:  86175228  dropped pkts:      0 bytes:      0 ]
  [ qlength:  0/ 50 ]

@johnvan:

Hello, I want to setup some very basic traffic shaping rules.  I need my voip phone to work well 100% of the time so I want to guarantee some bandwidth.  I want p2p traffic to be fast, but not at the expense of general web browsing.

First question, I didn't know what to enter for first page "network speeds" How do I determine this value or should I leave it blank?

Don't leave it blank. Guess it. And correctly, or the shaper doesnot work.

@johnvan:

If I gaurantee a high number for voip traffic will that bandwidth still be available when the phone is not being used? My voip computer is a dedicated computer running magicjack with a static IP address. I used the IP address for shaping and used 128kbps.

Yes, it will. Any unused bandwidth will be shared between active traffics according to the link-share bandwidth (or link-share curve, for HFSC).

@johnvan:

I want torrent traffic to be fast if nothing else is happening but it cannot slow down the internet or even worse, make the phone unuseable. I checked to lower the priority of p2p traffic, checked bittorrent but I use only a single port (15999) which is out of the default range so I think I will have to change that.

Use HFSC. Create a catch-all rule that catchs everything else into qwanp2p and qlanp2p. For VoIP create a good real-time curve. For p2p, create a good upper-limit curve.

Create a pass rule on the WAN for the IP address in question. When creating the rule you have the option of limiting connections. Place that rule above any other rule that would allow that IP address through.

Have you looked at this yet?

http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/VoIP_Configuration

I'm guessing your fix is there. I can't see traffic shaping breaking your voip unless your voip packets are being classified to too low of a priority.

Gotcha, thanks for the input. I'm happy either way as I'm getting the call quality I wanted. :)

You need both … QoS on the router if you're going to use a VoIP Internet Provider and you'll need internal QoS into your switch to make sure your VLAN is prioritize over other traffic.

If you're IP/PBX gets it's PTSN access with a POTS or a T1/PRI the router QoS is not a necessity, but QoS is always a good thing even if you do not use VoIP. Just to prioritize HTTP(S) over FTP is a good thing to provide a good fast experience to your users.

At work I'm stuck with a SonicWALL without that much QoS but my IP/PBX does not use Internet for PSTN access, only external softphone here and there, not a big deal and the router can manage... But all my internal Layer2&3 switches have QoS enabled.

could you be more specific?

@jlepthien:

There is no way to configure more than two interfaces (usually WAN and LAN) in 1.2.3. You'll have to wait until 2.0 is more stable or you can test if it works for you.

Ok, I'll accept that you can't configure more than two interfaces from the webGUI.  But are you saying that you can't do it manually through the configuration files?

My situation is that for now, I only need one simple rule, to give VoIP traffic priority.  If I do enable the traffic shaper, with my 3 interfaces, with just the two rules, what will be the consequences?

@jlepthien:

Since all traffic is on WAN interface there is no chance for the shaper to do its work. I suggest you set up a file server to which both clients can connect and then share stuff on this way.

Ok, thanks for the reply. Unfortunatly, such transferts are mainly done with scp, because VPN are used to connect several LAN's, so a file server is not an option.

I will put the openvpn server behind the firewall, by this way all traffic will go from WAN to LAN and from LAN to WAN.

Regards,
Pierre