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    Need help finding guidance on traffic shaping that meets my needs

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Traffic Shaping
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    • J
      joshuagoshert
      last edited by

      Small network for a non-profit organization. One WAN, one LAN, one internal subnet, no VLAN, pfSense 2.6.0, with anywhere from 20 to 50 devices on average. I'm very new to pfSense.
      Need to force dynamic but equal sharing of bandwidth (total/# of active users), but priority needs to be set by application, not by IP/MAC.
      If bandwidth is maxed out, I want Zoom (and other video-conferencing) to have number one priority. I do not have VOIP. I want to force everything YouTube to the bottom of the priority and Facebook below that.
      Everything I've found either doesn't apply to my situation or is unanswered.

      J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • J
        joshuagoshert @joshuagoshert
        last edited by

        @joshuagoshert One other note to add on. I added ntopng to help identify wasted bandwidth and was impressed to see it could differentiate between Facebook, YouTube, and a variety of Google Services. I hope that something available in pfSense can help me prioritize Zoom over those services without blocking them.

        T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • T
          thiasaef @joshuagoshert
          last edited by thiasaef

          @joshuagoshert probably not what you want to hear, but I would send the traffic through an additional linux box which runs CAKE (which by default supports per host fairness) and will also automatically meet most of your other demands.

          I hope that something available in pfSense can help me prioritize Zoom over those services

          Probably not unless you make sure that DSCP markings are applied to all relevant traffic on all clients.

          J luckman212L 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • J
            joshuagoshert @thiasaef
            last edited by

            @thiasaef Definitely worth a try, thanks for the advice.

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            • luckman212L
              luckman212 LAYER 8 @thiasaef
              last edited by

              @thiasaef would you suggest openwrt or something home-grown? Does the CAKE box go in between LAN <-> pfSense or between ISP <-> pfSense?

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              • T
                thiasaef @luckman212
                last edited by

                @luckman212 said in Need help finding guidance on traffic shaping that meets my needs:

                would you suggest openwrt or something home-grown?

                I have never used OpenWRT (but I think it is much better than its reputation). Using CAKE on Linux is as simple as typing:

                tc qdisc add dev eth0 root cake bandwidth XXmbit
                

                Here is an in-depth guide on how to set it up: https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/codel/wiki/Cake/#configuring-cake

                Does the CAKE box go in between LAN <-> pfSense or between ISP <-> pfSense?

                I guess it depends on your exact configuration and what you're trying to achieve, but if you're running all your LAN traffic through a single interface, I'd probably go with the former.

                The main reason why I recommended CAKE on Linux in this case is that

                force dynamic but equal sharing of bandwidth (total/# of active users)

                is not possible with pfSense - at least to my knowledge.

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                • T
                  thiasaef @thiasaef
                  last edited by

                  @luckman212, in case you are wondering how CAKE's performance compares to FQ-Codel:

                  The difference between the 'ingress' and 'egress' keywords is described here: Regarding cake's “ingress” keyword

                  luckman212L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • luckman212L
                    luckman212 LAYER 8 @thiasaef
                    last edited by

                    @thiasaef Thanks. I'm still waiting for the limiter bug in 22.05 to be fixed so I can test properly. I don't have very aggressive needs so I'm hoping I don't end up needing anything more than pfSense.

                    Side note: how did you generate those nice graphs?

                    T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • T
                      thiasaef @luckman212
                      last edited by

                      @luckman212 said in Need help finding guidance on traffic shaping that meets my needs:

                      Side note: how did you generate those nice graphs?

                      Flent: The FLExible Network Tester

                      ? 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ?
                        A Former User @thiasaef
                        last edited by

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                        • J
                          joshuagoshert
                          last edited by joshuagoshert

                          Ended up reverting back to 2.5.2 and everything works as it should. Not as I want, but at least the static traffic shaping does what it is described to do in the guide.

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