Qos To Keep Gaming Pings Good And Download Uninterupted, bit of help please guys, networking isn't my thing! Options

[dynamis_dk]

Right, heres the picutre.

My main rig is sat suping power all day long as i've sorted myself out a 1ghz epia system which i plan to setup as a 24/7 server to which i can add downloads etc to leave it going so my main rig can be switched off or suspended while it not being used.

My issue is this, last time i did this i have to vnc to the download box to pause the downloads each time i used the PC but i'm sure theres something out there which uses a QoS style system so i can set my main rig to have all priority for traffic. The Epia kit has 2 NICS onboard so it would make for an easy, in - out connection to the network so i figure that using it sat between the router and my main rig would be easy.

Is there any software out there which can achive something similar to the above?? I've seen a few threads on ubuntu builds being configured as router, firewall etc but linux based software and networking isn't my thing so i'm a little out of my comfy area

[Sim0n]

Smoothwall 3 should do your proud, its linux based, but totally webGUI managed after installation.

Installation is as simple as finding an old PC (Pentium or above) throwing in 2 NIC's and booting from a CD.. follow the simple instructions, give it some IP addresses, setup DHCP if wanted/needed. Job done.

QoS is enabled for specific ports, or entire IP's.

[dynamis_dk]

That looks sweet, just what a noob like myself needs... You wouldn't think i was an IT tech 9 till 5 would you lol.

Can you setup smoothwall and torrentflux on the same box or do i have to have one box as firewall and another as my download box??

[[TFF]Q]

it is possible to run both on the same box, however it would be very silly to do so as well making the firewall pointless.

if you really want to us the same physical hardware (for power saving reasons etc) then use something like xen to install the os's and the virtually network them or just go down the route most people have of having a file server with torrentflux/b4rt on there. Personally I use linux for a host os as file server (raid 6) and the use xen to install my mail and web servers essentially seperating them from the host.

As for QoS jobs I personally prefer pfsense to Smoothwall, the way it handles QoS is more in depth, you can adjust the bandwidth priority by IP, Port, and protocol, as well as being able to alias all of them into groups and prioritise the rule sets. You can also define max and minimum bandwidth that the rule set can use or requires and it works two ways (define in and out bound QoS)

This means you don't have to set anything client side, i.e. if you torrent.

Your torrents can go full pelt because pfsense will only give it a max of x amount of bandwidth and if games require more it will reduce the amount. So putting figures on it.

Say your line speed is 1000kps (1mb) down and 256kps up.

You can give torrents a minimum of 0kps up and down and a max of 128kps up and 700kps down.

Game ports/IP's/Protocols could have a required minimum of 128kps up and 250kps down (meaning that the firewall will reduce other traffic to keep this requirement)

VOIP could have a required 64kps up and 64kps down.

you could build on this to use your entire bandwidth and allow the firewall to then manage it all.

If I remember smoothwall and it's other forks don't allow for this, they only allow for IP's and ports to be prioritised rather than allow them to be set a minimum bandwidth requirement and a maximum bandwidth limit.

pfsense is straight forward to use as an out of the box solution like smoothwall but also allows for very advanced and complex network solutions (multiwan, multi external IPs, 1:1 NAT, Carp.)

If you need a hand configuring pfsense give me a PM.

-={Q}=-

[dynamis_dk]

cheers for that, i'l take a look at em over the weekend.

Main reason for wanting to use on rig for both is cause i don't have two machines at the moment lol... sure i can dig something out tho. I've a bunch of 250gb HDD's so i'd like to have a fileserver setup too so might do as suggested above.

can you install all these solutions from say a 2gb CF card and IDE adapter??

[Sim0n]

Should be, they are very stripped down linux distro's.

Smoothwall certainly would struggle to install bittorent apps, as they need so many other dependencies. Smoothwall isnt designed to have such buildable components used on it, as its a firewall.

As Q mentioned, running anything like that on a firewall defeats its primary purpose : concentrating on protecting/analysing network stuff.

[dynamis_dk]

I'll have a see what old stuff we got kicking around at work see if i can build something up...

[VeeHexx]

i've gone slightly different approch...
i've just bought myself a dual-core celeron, 2gb ram. i'll be using it for an AIO box - MCE, IPCop (same as smoothwall), VOIP Server and download server as virtual machines.

just need plenty of NIC cards todo that, so either a quad-port NIC or plenty of PCI slots for NICcards is required!

i've done MCE and IPCOP previously in 1 box - worked flawless.

[[TFF]Q]

Basically the same as one my suggestions above only that you've gone a windows route rather than a Linux one.

If you are that way inclined then it's a good route to take, I use this method for my DNS, VoIP, Mail and web servers and just use another box for pfsense which routes my static IP's accordingly to the correct internal one.

You get the security of "separate machines" but the resource usage of one. however make sure that the host system is secure and doesn't fail otherwise you've lost your network in a box.

Also VeeHexx you should be able to get away with just 2 network cards and just virtually bridge aliased adapters. I know Xen can cope with this fine and beleave VMware can as well but not sure Virtual Machine.

-={Q}=-

[VeeHexx]

2 NICs yeah - yeah, indeed it is posible... not sure how im going todo it atm.

i'll be using MS Virtual Server 2k5r2. think it supports it, ill have a play 2morrow to make sure it can do internal NICs.
i would use server2k8's hyperV, but hardware doesnt support hyperV, and MCE dont support 2k8 :/

plan is to have orange as virtual internal, red and green as physical connections, and the mobo's gbit NIC as fileserve/host access connected to green. a virtual green2 interface couldbe an option if they have a mod available for ipcop.

[[TFF]Q]

Sun xVM VirtualBox allows for it as well, however it is limited to 4 network adapters (real or virtual) per machine, so should work for your scenario.

As for green 2 you can mod the Blue interface to be a green 2.

-={Q}=-

[dynamis_dk]

Well today i finally got it all working together!!

Got a 1GB Epia system running pfsense (with wireless AP, DHCP and NAT/QOS configured)

Then running 4 PC's (2 PC, 2 laptop) as normal, then 1 box as a fileshare/torrent box.

so far seems to be working fine, tho not tested out gaming while torrenting to see how effective the QoS settings are but all in all i'm pretty happy with it. Means my wireless router is now unused too...

Cheers for the assistance with this guys

[[TFF]Q]

Bit of a late reply but none the less I'm glad to see that you've got it working.

You'll have to test the QoS and let me know what you think of it.

-={Q}=-