I LOVE Quality of Service (QoS)
I’m got my new Linksys WRT54GL router all set up. Most of the features are fairly typical, therefore not very exciting. However, the QoS (quality of service) features have a significant impact on my Internet experience. It’s basically a prioritization algorithm that can make sure that higher priority traffic gets through at the expense of lower priority traffic.
Last night, I started an rsync backup on my Linux server. It quickly sucked up 120KB/s of my upload bandwidth. I configured QoS to assign the rsync port the lowest possible priority. That means that any other traffic should slow it down. BitTorrent traffic is in the same category. While the backup was running, I started a BitTorrent download. I watched the rsync speed drop, until the BitTorrent speed and rsync speed were about even.
Then, I opened Unreal Tournament 2004 before setting it up for QoS. The ping times were between 200ms and 300ms, and it was nearly unplayable. I quit the game and prioritized the ports (7777-7788) to the highest level. After re-opening the game, my ping times were around 20ms, and it was perfectly smooth.
After I quit the game again, I tried shutting down æTorrent and then watched rsync get all of the bandwidth back.
This is great because I used to start my backups late and night, and then kill them in the morning. The problem is that there were often hours of wasted time that files could have been synchronizing, but I didn’t want it interfering with my connection. Now, I can let it synchronize any time it wants, and I won’t even notice a difference.
I highly recommend QoS to any Internet power users, gamers, or people using VOIP.
So is this running Tomato? Or the built-in firmware?
Tomato of course! I upgraded about 30 seconds after I got it.
So I’m running tomato now. Its wayy better than DDWRT!
Anyway, question about QoS. I have it set-up for BitTorrent — I actually have torrent traffic as high for me. I noticed a ton of the traffic labelled as BitTorrent getting correctly tucked into the “high” category, but I’ve also noticed a ton more using the same ports but not being considered BitTorrent, and thus getting tucked into “low.”
I used Tomato’s “BitTorrent” setting to categorize my traffic, but maybe I should just re-assign the whole port range?
I just checked my settings, and I have it set up the same as you, except it’s assigned to “Lowest”. I think you have the right idea just doing it by port. I’m sure that’s much more reliable.
I wonder if it’s recognizing the packets doing actual bittorrent file transfers, but doesn’t recognize some packets that are essentially overhead for other purposes.