Networking – How to limit download speed per port on the network

bandwidthdownloadnetworking

Greetings,

I have several computers accessing the Internet at once.
And with one download a file using a download manager (either bittorrent, orbit, etc.), the computer with that softwares grabs almost all the bandwidth then.

Is there a way to limit the bandwidth to be used per computer so that even with a download manager, all computers share the same bandwidth speed (I'm pertaining to the download speed)?

I have these switch connected to a main switch directly connected to the modem.
All computers utilize Windows XP Professional.

Your response is highly appreciated.

Best Answer

Some routers can limit bandwidth per port or per client or per address block using QoS. The exact method of doing it (if at all) would depend on the model of router you have. If you are only using switches in a parallel configuration with static IPs then no, unless you can talk your ISP into setting it up for you (which some will per IP or IP block for a price).

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Don't do it with Squid : you need control for everything, not just for HTTP on port 80.

The answer requires iptables with the '--quota' option, which implements network quotas by decrementing a byte counter with each packet. The argument of "--quota" is a value in bytes.

There shall be one chain for each user. First rule of the chain counts down a 13 GB quota for packets from 192.168.0.2 and accepts the packet if it is below quota:

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s 192.168.0.2 -m quota --quota 13958643712 -j ACCEPT

Second rule of the chain classify over-quota packets in a tc class of your choice :

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -j CLASSIFY --set-class 1:12

Then it's all classic traffic shaping : http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Traffic-Control-HOWTO/

Of course, you need to use static IP allocation or make sure that DHCP allocates addresses fixed by device's MAC address - and you need to block all addresses but the identified ones of the devices belonging to one of the three users.

By the way, you mention that "when 2 people browse the internet they should get 1 Mbps each, and when 3 people access, they should get 2Mbps divided by 3" but you can do better than that when you set up your traffic classes hierarchy: your requirement should rather be "when two people browse the internet they should not get less that 1 Mbps each, and when three people access, they should get not get less that 2 Mbps divided by 3" so that each can get more if the other people use less than their guaranteed throughput... And tc lets you do that !

Since your router is supported by openwrt and dd-wrt, you have all the tools you need !

Best Answer

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