Setting up Data Caps
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Hy guys,hope you are all good.I really appreciate the help i get from you and it is good you keep helping people. I have been having this situation where my internet gets throttled when i reach a limit of 35GB on daily basis between 8 - 00 A.M to 5 - 00 P.M on weekdays and after that the limit is not impounded anymore. My network has about 20 Clients and some clients use services such as Netflix and Torrents which inturn deplete the bandwidth even before 5 -00 P.M. So i am now desperately looking for an option where i set data Caps on each client,such that when say a client utilizes X GB within that period of time then his/her internet gets throttled to about say 1Mbps untill 5 - 00 P.M where it goes back to normal speeds (depending on the package he/she is paying for). I would really appreciate any help. Thank you
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Captive Portal allows you to force your users to use vouchers for access, with time limits and bandwidth-use limits.
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@KOM Thanks but you see these are home based users, each with a router. So if i use the captive portal,i might end up forcing everyone to get a voucher and that is unreasonable for someone paying for monthly services.
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AFAIK, it's the only way to limit bandwidth used per client on pfSense.
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@KOM Ok. But what about when the data provided to the client is limited?
What i would like, is when say the XGB is depleted the speed drastically reduce to say 1Mbps untill 5 P.M when there are no restrictions. -
No, pfSense has no such features. You can shape traffic, or you can use captive portal to limit how much bandwidth a client uses per allotted time period. That's it. It's not a mini ISP in a box.
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@KOM But i already set limiters to each client, such that some get 5Mbps and others 10Mbps. So if i use captive portal to set bandwidth allocated to a specific device will it affect those limiters
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I have no idea how captive portal interacts with limiters.
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The captive portal can apply Limiters on a per client basis.
To use total traffic limiting you need to use Radius accounting. You can specify both rates and totals for each client doing that but it's a complex setup. It might be worth it for the result though.
How are the clients connecting currently? I assume this is a WISP style setup?
Steve
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@stephenw10 Yes this is a Wisp. So each and every client gets a dhcp lease from the pfsense machine where i set limiters according to each clients package using Aliases. I am new to this stuff but does radius accounting achieve that?
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Checkout the hangout KOM linked above. Specifically from here onwards.
Steve