Limiting bandwidth between certain hours, which way is the best?
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Hello fellow pfSense users!!
SO my ISP just informed me that my current internet plan was to be eliminated and as a result, they are migrating me to the nearest plan (pricewise)…
My current plan is 20/10 unlimited data. The new plan will be 30/10 with 300GB per month. They however do not count usage between 2AM & 8AM on a daily basis. FYI the ISP is Teksavvy for the ones in Canada.
Having web services running on my local server, and several users, I have a concern with data cap and to avoid overusage, I'd like to take advantage of the "free" period to download/upload larger files.
Instead of throtlling each services individually on each machine (nightmare to manage), I decided to use my beloved pfsense machine to do so but I am a total noob and I am not sure how to proceed…
Id like to throttle the speed (both incoming & outgoing) during the day, and at 2am, open up full speed until 8am, then throttle again. This would be every day of the week. I do not wish to proceed on a per IP basis since the network topology changes quite often (smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc...).
Also if possible, id like to limit the bandwidth usage to 300GB per month. Then close to 300GB, I'd get a notification from pfsense and at 300GB pfsense would close all connections until the billing cycle restarts..
Are these things possible with pfsense??? I would appreciate any help I can get!
Thanks! -
Limiters + schedule rules is the best way.
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@cmb:
Limiters + schedule rules is the best way.
cmb, Im not an IT admin by any means, but would you think the pfsense book help me answer my own questions and further my understanding of pfsense? Or is it overkill for my needs?
BTW thanks for helping!! I really appreciate!
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The current printed edition of the book wouldn't help you here because it doesn't cover limiters since they're newer than the book. The new one will be available soon, and that will have all the info to help with this setup.
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Very well!! I'll stay tuned with the upcoming press release of the handbook! ;)
In the meantime I went as follows:
Firewall dropdown list > Traffic Shaper > Limiter tab
Create a new limiter
Checked enable limiter and its children, entered a name, the bandwidth I want, then hit Saved button (mask field left to 'none')Will this throttle the speed for ANYTHING coming in or out of my WAN connection?
Then to the schedules.
Firewall > Schedules > Click the + sign
The web interface does not allow me to set the schedule for every day and be perpetual.. It is bound to a calendar of the current month, and the month dropdown list allows me only to select the upcoming year. How do I set every day forever?
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Clicking on the day of the week and not the individual date makes it perpetual.
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Also if possible, id like to limit the bandwidth usage to 300GB per month. Then close to 300GB, I'd get a notification from pfsense and at 300GB pfsense would close all connections until the billing cycle restarts..
This is also a fu7ndamental feature I'd like to implement. At $1.50 per GB, its not long before the bills go up.
Can pfsense limit the amount of data per time cycle (per month, per day, etc….)???