internet bandwidth management hardware?

L

LadyJaqie

I Have No Title
Joined
Jun 9, 2002
Messages
1,422
Hey all. Ive got a problem, albeit a small one.
Ive been looking for a solution to my bandwidth management needs for a long time, and I thought I had a solution but alas...

I had my system set up with netlimiter (www.netlimiter.com) winroute pro, and other stuff. its an all in one server, router, everything. it serves our internet site, email, everything... it also serves our files to us, and its going to be serving games. I have a DI-614+ and besides the lack of bandwidth management it was perfect, so I switched to this to attempt to fix it but alas...

on to the problem.

net limiter doesn't see os level programs / programs that sit below the TCP/IP stack, so it cant limit their bandwidth usage. I had hoped to use it to limit the bandwidth of each program I ran... it doesn't even *SEE* apache's transfers, and it doesn't see winroute's transfers either. That's the problem.

What to do, what to do?
Here's what I want to do, and believe me I am quite a picky #$^#^ when I choose what I want it takes a bit of convincing for me to do something else but I can be convinced if theres enough push.

1) go back behind the trusty DI-614+
2) buy a refurb/used managed switch, even if its a 5 port... <- **THIS IS WHAT I NEED HELP WITH...
3) re-setting up this server so it just runs behind the router instead of is one too. (ive done this before its no big deal)

I have some very strong preferences for and against certain brands, but first thing's first, I need to save as much money as I can. used or refurb is first priority, other management options are a plus but not needed, bandwidth per IP or per port are absolute necessity. That is all I truly need.

One thing I will *NOT* buy is linksys, but others I am open on. please keep in mind that I am on a tight budget.

OK guys (and if there are any other girls out there too) help me please, I am asking for you to lend me your expertice!
 
WRT54G with alchemy firmware found at any of theindividual's mirrors (pre5a is latest)

it has a very nice QOS solution where you can proritize mac addresses and port numbers.
 
LadyJaqie said:
buy a refurb/used managed switch
One thing I will *NOT* buy is linksys
Click to expand...

*sigh* I know that a managed layer2/layer3 switch will be a lot but what's my best bet $ wise for one that won't bust and is worth it? Ive never bought or researched a managed switch...
 
trust me, there is nothing wrong with the WRT, unless you have something against busybox and IPtables. because aside from branding, its a linux box, and with sveasoft firmware, very little of it is even linksys code.

i suppose you could spend ALOT of money on a managed switch instead, but from a practical aspect i dont really see the point.
 
*sigh* no one will recommend a model or even brand of managed switch?

yah I admit its temptimg to get one of those but I hate linksys as much as I hate barney, and until cisco has totally borged them Im staying away.
 
the reason, I need to get a true professional solution as I am getting into something that needs it. If what I plan on doing takes off Ill be running some mega bandwidth...
check out http://foxenforums.mine.nu/ and you'll see what I mean...
 
Maybe I don't understand what you are asking.... But do you want the switch to limit bandwidth? A normal managed switch won't do that. For that you'll need a multilayer swtitch and configure QoS. You are better off getting a "real" router with a proper QoS implementation. That is expensive. How much are you looking to spend?
 
as little as I can, but as much as I have to. I need one that will do per-port (or per IP) bandwidth limiting / QoS. layer3 I believe does it but is it layer 2 only functionality?

yes what I need is per port or per IP bandwidth limiting.

do I have to learn freeBSD? is that my best option? *sigh*
I want to eventually, I like FreeBSD just... Its so hard for me to learn things that I just don't ''get'' like hardware. I hate having high functioning autism :mad:
 
you can go uber cheap (linux box of your own, or wrt) or realllly expensive (cisco)

give us a price range and maybe we can help.

you may not even need QoS if you dont use P2P all that much.
 
I guess I could just get an older box (like maybe P2-400ish) and slap in a bunch of refurbished 3com NICs from www.computergeeks.com... then bang my head against it for a few months trying to get it...
 
here's what I need to do...

I know this is asking the impossible but I'm that type of girl. And Ive done things people say are impossible. I am reminded of an old saying:
"The person saying something is impossible is usually interrupted by the person doing it"
Don't know who said it, anyway back on topic.

my price range, for the coming month, is about $50, but if I have to I can wait a couple months and save up about $250-300 if needed. that'll hurt but if I really need to I can come up with it.

the task: bond two connections and run the aggregate to a server garden.
wireless 1.5Mbit/1.5Mbit from carrollsweb
cable 5.0Mbit/768Kbit from cox
I know it'll be near impossible to truly load balance them, but here's the important thing
It doesn't need truly loadbalanced!
the server can be on the 1.5/1.5 and everything else (youll see) can be running off both of them.

I am going to be trying to run a game patch torrent site. game patches / TCs / etc. legal downloads. because of how torrents work, I can just run it from both IPs and itll run from wherever there is bandwidth! the problem is we want some left over for us.
but we want to dedicate most of the upload of the cable (which is our personal use) to the torrent ups, which is why this.
 
LadyJaqie,

The closest "inexpensive" router option that even comes close to load balancing incoming and outgoing connections is made by a company called Xincom. this router has an authoritive DNS server built in that automatically checks each WAN connection and returns the address of the least used connection. In addition it load balances LAN based traffic as well.

The other cool feature is that it will do automatic failover in case one connection goes down. It's expensive compared to your budget ($650+), but if it does want you want, then I don't know of any other "packaged" option that even comes close to this product.

I will be ordering one of these tomorrow for my own plans to load balance 3.5/768K DSL and 3.5/256K cable service for both incoming and outgoing. I plan on extensively monitoring and testing this unit for a couple weeks to make sure it works as advertised. When I do, I will post the results here for those interested.
 
The Linksys above will do the "load balancing". Since you have two seperate connections with seperate IP addresses you will be load balancing "per connection". That means when a connection comes in over your first connect, all subsequent data goes over that connect. A true load balancing setup would do it per-packet which would let you saturate both connects with one transfer.

I don't know if that router does QoS or not. If not you'll need a router that does. A Layer 3 switch doing the routing can do it..but that's $$$.
 
the RV dual-wan series is a bug ridden peice of flaming...you get the idea, read reviews. a soho cisco router with 2 wan modules would do FAR better.
 
Your network diagrams and such come from what looks like a home setup..is that what this is? Just as a sidenote, from browsing pics of your network and such, you sure do pack a lot of equipment and gadgets into one house! Do you even need heaters? :) I find it impressive all the assumed tinkering you do with this stuff.

Aggregating two Internet connections into one network is not a typical thing to do, especially for a non-corporation. Hell, this is really getting into the realm of what ISPs themselves do. As such, it will cost you some money to get the proper router you need, and to configure it.

Our company accomplishes this through a Tasman Networks router where we aggregate three T1's. This is no small bill, and takes coordination between our ISP (MCI) and the router. The main thing to keep in mind is that in a situation like this, we have three T1 lines, all of which use the same external IP.

I don't think a white box router like FreeBSD or Linux will do this otherwise we would have done so with our original T1 and our failover DSL line long ago. This is beyond just adding NICs into a "router" white box.

Maybe you could take a step back and ask yourself if you really should be hosting a Torrent site? Should you be using "critical" things on a wireless Internet connection? Do you want to just plain use one for one purpose and the other for the other without mixing the two?

I will end by saying that this is a little bit beyond me, so I may be wrong in some of my information...might just be ignorance on my part. :)
 
thanks for all the help guys, and yes I need heaters. the 24th the wind chill got to well below zero here...
The only systems right now are the server, demia2, mako's main box (celery 2.2) and a laptop P 233mmx. we are slowly adding more as we can afford it. the next step is step-upping the lan-wan to handle all the stuff. Yes, I want failover...I want to do this. once we get the hosting going and going good, then I will try to get professional with it but at first it will simply have to be grass roots and thus be hosted at this house.

the wireless internet uses waverider www.waverider.com and it's, in my experience, BETTER then cable / DSL. go there and check out its stats. its just...WOW!

Anyways, cisco...hmm... what would do what I want, minimum $ used that I could snag at ebay or somethin? ill check out if m0n0wall will do this, and also Ill check out clarkconnect...
 
As for the Cisco.. For minimum $, what do you mean? You could always get a craptastic 2514 for like $100, if you really want something that says Cisco, although it's 10baseT. But honestly, just grab a x86 box, slap a decent amount of ram in there, intel pro/100 NICs
and install FreeBSD, you wont be disappointed.

OH! And to answer your question, there are various ways to limit/cap bandwidth. PF, IPFW, etc...

sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1 and you're all set for goodness :cool:
 
:eek:WOW:eek:
thanks! I wanna do that!
www.computergeeks.com has refurb 3com 10/100's cheap so Imma go with those less there's some specific reason not to.

now, as for a cisco router. minimum meant minimum for a used... ebay or other used liquidator place... for one that was worth buying...the whole reason for this thread and all was cuz I wanna do this right...

thanks a ton for all the help everyone :) it's surely appreciated!
 
a pair of intel pro/100+'s or intel pro 100 management adapters go a LONG way.

if you ever want to do 802.1q (vlan tagging) you'll need the management adapters.
they're also great cards all around.


im sure there is nothing wrong with 3com though..it just seems like a retarded child compared to the intel management adapters.
 
are you sure?

3comprop.jpg
 
:confused: ok...obviously I am ignorant as to the difference. care to belay my lack of knowledge?

no problem if you don't, Ill do some googleing within a few days :) just now ive got to spend some time with my life mate. We've got some SHOPPING to do ;)
 
you can do it with linux

see http://www.lartc.org/

right now I have setup at my house
a cable internet line and a dsl line

the cable is a 6.0/128 line
the dsl is a 768/768 sdsl line

using a dual p2 350box running debian
it is setup to manage bandwith from every computer in the house
prioritise trafic to the server
prioritise all trafic over BT trafic (can do this the other way...)
and have it setup such that incoming BT trafic gets routed to the cable line
and outgoing goes over the sdsl line

it also manages dhcp serving and radius and smtp
after reading trough the man's
it took about 2 days to get it setup and figure out all my mistakes
 
802.1q:
Addresses the Ethernet limitation inherent in the 802.1p standard. 802.1Q defines an architecture for a general purpose virtual LAN (VLAN) and describes a four-byte extension to Ethernet frame headers. This four-byte extension includes a number of fields, including a three-bit priority field used to signal 802.1p-compliant devices. These three bits provide eight possible values, which match those used in the 802.1p user priority field.

802.1p
An extension of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.1D bridging standard, which defines a way for Media Access Control (MAC) devices (such as switches) to interoperate. Among other things, the 802.1p extension defines a way for MAC devices to provide preferential queuing to certain traffic classes, which are defined by a value called the user priority value.

happy holidays :cool:
 
How's this look for server stats? I've been mulling the stats around in my head for a while now...

Intel 440BX ATX slot 1 motherboard, used
P2-400 to P3-600 slot 1 processor, used
128MB PC100 Micron Cas2 RAM (already have)
4GB Seagate HD (already have)
4x intel 10/100 PCI network cards, refurb or new, whatever I can get my paws on
(2xWAN ports, 1xServer port, 1xHomeLAN port)
FreeBSD-5.3-RELEASE

what I would want to do is have it set to log to a RAM drive, be set to power down the HD and keep it powered down (be set for no swap) and every week, power it up and write logs, then power it down again... it will be on a backUPS so if power is lost it can power up the HD, write logs, and then shut down...
 
thats about what i have sitting downstairs (slot 1 p2-450 on a 440 based mobo with 256mb of pc100 and a cheap 8mb rage pro, only one NIC in it though.)

anything over a pentium 100 will handle most things just fine, even a 486 can route.
so 300-400 is just fine
 
I figure heavy duty internet cacheing (Im going to gnab a second HD and run like a 4GB internet cacheing solution for windows update files and such), heavy useage, network bridging, some rather complex port mapping, VPN, WIFI with WEP and other security percautions (using a PCI WIFI card), Ill eventually need a good p3-600 I bet...
 
Dude guys, calm down.

Check this out www.ipcop.org

All you need is an old PC with some empty PCI slots, little bit of memory, little hard drive.
Load 3 NIC cards, set up IPcop, done.
 
LadyJaqie said:
I figure heavy duty internet cacheing (Im going to gnab a second HD and run like a 4GB internet cacheing solution for windows update files and such), heavy useage, network bridging, some rather complex port mapping, VPN, WIFI with WEP and other security percautions (using a PCI WIFI card), Ill eventually need a good p3-600 I bet...
Click to expand...
1) this is what I want to do
2) I'm not a guy
3) I don't want to calm down, I'm quite excited about this and want to stay that way :D
 
also for nic's you might wanna check ebay.. i just bought 10 3c905-tx's for 28$ shipped..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top