CakeQOS CakeQOS-Merlin v1.0.8

[lilstone87]

Hey I'm thinking about playing with a couple settings, however I'm a bit confused on how to do so. I seen Dave's post about how to, still not 100% on how to do it. I'm a noob to this type of stuff, for me, before Merlin merged Cake into his builds. It was rather simple to me, as I just needed to open up putty, connect to the router, and access the Cake menu.

With that said, besides Cake, I have no need for a USB drive connected to the router. With RMerlin merging Cake into the firmware, I stopped using a USB drive period. I'm curious reading Dave's post mentioning a .add file. Is a USB drive currently needed to modify Cake settings with RMerlin's build?

Honestly if someone is up to explaining how to do this, for my noob self, I would greatly appreciate it. Once I learn something, it's easy for me. Just reading Dave's post, to me there was a lot in it, and had me confused how to modify both DL/UL settings.

 

[jata]

Hey I'm thinking about playing with a couple settings, however I'm a bit confused on how to do so. I seen Dave's post about how to, still not 100% on how to do it. I'm a noob to this type of stuff, for me, before Merlin merged Cake into his builds. It was rather simple to me, as I just needed to open up putty, connect to the router, and access the Cake menu.

With that said, besides Cake, I have no need for a USB drive connected to the router. With RMerlin merging Cake into the firmware, I stopped using a USB drive period. I'm curious reading Dave's post mentioning a .add file. Is a USB drive currently needed to modify Cake settings with RMerlin's build?

Honestly if someone is up to explaining how to do this, for my noob self, I would greatly appreciate it. Once I learn something, it's easy for me. Just reading Dave's post, to me there was a lot in it, and had me confused how to modify both DL/UL settings.

In my opinion, you need to have a good reason to add additional cake settings as it is designed to be 'good' out of the box. If you really want to play with settings then it might be better to turn off cake via the GUI (merlin's implementation) and install the USB based script (cake-qos) where it is much easier to play with different settings.

If you find some settings that work better - using the original cake-qos script then these can be applied to merlin's implementation.

I am using merlin's config and it's working fine but I still have cake-qos installed but stopped (not uninstalled).

to answer the specific question regarding the .add file - I don't think you need a USB attached for this to work.

 

[lilstone87]

In my opinion, you need to have a good reason to add additional cake settings as it is designed to be 'good' out of the box.

Well my reasoning to messing around with settings, is to see what works best for me, when gaming. RMerlin's alpha build was problematic with Cake for me, as i noticed things randomly feeling off over multiple games. I dug into it a bit, and wasn't a isp connection issue. Something with Cake got funny while multiple devices were using active data over my home network. However no where near my connection's max.

I know with the beta build, RMerlin's did make a change with Cake. I need to do more testing with it. At the same time i would like to mess with a couple settings. More of swapping settings, not adding more to what's already there.

Overall i rather not use a USB drive to run Cake if possible. I currently just don't fully understand the process to modify settings within RMerlin's built in cake. So if anyone is willing to explain to me how to do it. I would appreciate it. I know some info has already been posted about it. I'm just a bit lost on how to modify the DL/UL cake settings.

 

[ttgapers]

Hey I'm thinking about playing with a couple settings, however I'm a bit confused on how to do so. I seen Dave's post about how to, still not 100% on how to do it. I'm a noob to this type of stuff, for me, before Merlin merged Cake into his builds. It was rather simple to me, as I just needed to open up putty, connect to the router, and access the Cake menu.

With that said, besides Cake, I have no need for a USB drive connected to the router. With RMerlin merging Cake into the firmware, I stopped using a USB drive period. I'm curious reading Dave's post mentioning a .add file. Is a USB drive currently needed to modify Cake settings with RMerlin's build?

Honestly if someone is up to explaining how to do this, for my noob self, I would greatly appreciate it. Once I learn something, it's easy for me. Just reading Dave's post, to me there was a lot in it, and had me confused how to modify both DL/UL settings.

Hi - not to discourage you, but with a little patience it is literally easy as cake. Since we are in beta testing mode for the built-in modules you have two options.

1. Rollback to the addon using non-beta firmware
2. If you choose the beta firmware have a look at the posts both @RMerlin and myself provided on howto manually mod (only if required)

For most users the settings in the current beta should work fine for testing until mods are released for advanced users to configure in the method you prefer.

cheers

 

[lilstone87]

Hi - not to discourage you, but with a little patience it is literally easy as cake. Since we are in beta testing mode for the built-in modules you have two options.

I know, and I'm not trying to be difficult, or rude, to what has already been posted. I did read a few posts, and it seemed I could maybe(?) modify RMerlin's built in cake via Putty over SSH. If this is true, I must of been inputting the wrong info. Anyways it's not a super big deal right now. I just figured I would mess around with a couple settings, when I had a little free time.

For most users the settings in the current beta should work fine for testing until mods are released for advanced users to configure in the method you prefer.

I totally agree with this. Also I know changes will be made, to make it easier to change such settings. At this point I rather not move back in a sense, to use Cake with a USB drive in place. Mainly I was looking to learn how to change settings currently, if it wasn't to hard to do. Maybe it's a bit tricky, and I should just wait till RMerlin's makes it easier for us to modify cake settings.

 

[underdose]

For the time being, you can disable Cake under Adaptive QoS, then SSH into your router and use Cake-QoS script provided in the first post and play with it, until Merlin gives you the options to fiddle with hard-baked cake.

 

[SilentStorm]

Question - My ISP speeds are 500/20, I currently have CakeQoS set to 400/18.

Is there any harm in exceeding that "350mb" threshold? I know it doesn't support hardware acceleration so I'm obviously not expecting a speed boost, but just out of curiosity, will it work better if I set it to say, 350/18?

 

[ttgapers]

350/18?

Since this is really difficult to answer conclusively due to the variables of the interwebz involved, I would say give it a try and test it! We just notice speed degradation after a certain point. The key for the high speed users that might attract them to Cake is the latency/bloat that they may sacrifice some speed for a "cleaner" circuit.

 

[SilentStorm]

Since this is really difficult to answer conclusively due to the variables of the interwebz involved, I would say give it a try and test it! We just notice speed degradation after a certain point. The key for the high speed users that might attract them to Cake is the latency/bloat that they may sacrifice some speed for a "cleaner" circuit.

For sure, it's definitely something I'm willing to do to ensure a stable latency.

I'll give it a try!

 

[jata]

Well my reasoning to messing around with settings, is to see what works best for me, when gaming. RMerlin's alpha build was problematic with Cake for me, as i noticed things randomly feeling off over multiple games. I dug into it a bit, and wasn't a isp connection issue. Something with Cake got funny while multiple devices were using active data over my home network. However no where near my connection's max.

I know with the beta build, RMerlin's did make a change with Cake. I need to do more testing with it. At the same time i would like to mess with a couple settings. More of swapping settings, not adding more to what's already there.

Overall i rather not use a USB drive to run Cake if possible. I currently just don't fully understand the process to modify settings within RMerlin's built in cake. So if anyone is willing to explain to me how to do it. I would appreciate it. I know some info has already been posted about it. I'm just a bit lost on how to modify the DL/UL cake settings.

Understood and it's totally up to you how you go about tweaking your cake settings. I was just trying to provide you with an easier way to test. with the merlin version you will have to do the following for every change you make:

1. disable cake in the GUI
2. using SSH / nano create and/or edit the file /jffs/configs/cake-qos.conf.add
3. re-enable cake in GUI
4. use SSH to confirm the cake settings are as you wish
5. do your test
6. repeat 1-5 for any further changes

So to add additional settings, you will need to create the file cake-qos.conf.add (see location above)

you create the file using SSH client using the command touch /jffs/configs/cake-qos.conf.add

to add ack-filter (for example) to the setting, you need the following lines in the cake-qos.conf.add file

you do this using SSH clint using command nano /jffs/configs/cake-qos.conf.add

ULOPTIONS="$ULOPTIONS ack-filter"
DLOPTIONS="$DLOPTIONS ack-filter"

Note that I have not tried this myself (as I follow my own advice and do any testing using the cake-qos script)

My only other comment/thought on this is have you confirmed if the underlying issue (gaming ping/jitter) is with cake generally or with the merlin implementation?

Hope this helps you and keep us posted on what you learn...

 

[lilstone87]

Understood and it's totally up to you how you go about tweaking your cake settings. I was just trying to provide you with an easier way to test. with the merlin version you will have to do the following for every change you make:

1. disable cake in the GUI
2. using SSH / nano create and/or edit the file /jffs/configs/cake-qos.conf.add
3. re-enable cake in GUI
4. use SSH to confirm the cake settings are as you wish
5. do your test
6. repeat 1-5 for any further changes

So to add additional settings, you will need to create the file cake-qos.conf.add (see location above)

you create the file using SSH client using the command touch /jffs/configs/cake-qos.conf.add

to add ack-filter (for example) to the setting, you need the following lines in the cake-qos.conf.add file

you do this using SSH clint using command nano /jffs/configs/cake-qos.conf.add

ULOPTIONS="$ULOPTIONS ack-filter"
DLOPTIONS="$DLOPTIONS ack-filter"

Note that I have not tried this myself (as I follow my own advice and do any testing using the cake-qos script)

My only other comment/thought on this is have you confirmed if the underlying issue (gaming ping/jitter) is with cake generally or with the merlin implementation?

Hope this helps you and keep us posted on what you learn...

The biggest thing you helped me with here, is how to create the add file. Which I feel was the biggest missing thing in Dave's post. I'm pretty good at following instructions, and such. You really explained this well, and I greatly appreciate that. I know most people might know more, and things like this are a afterthought. But for me, it's new, so knowing the steps needed, to apply these changes are important. So thank you again!

I'm sure one of the other posts included whatever code is needed to check what settings are applied. So I will read a bit more. As I will for sure check to make sure the settings I change, are applied properly.

Edit: As for the gaming jitter type issue. I don't think it's a matter of Merlin's merge into his firmware build. It's a matter of Cake not playing nice with the amount of packets being passed by online games. As there can be a good bit of gaming packets being pushed, however bandwidth usage is low overall. So I'm curious if there's maybe a setting I can play with, that will minimize this issue, or if maybe this is a downfall of Cake, in a sense. For me I like using QoS, however my gaming traffic is top priority. I want it to run at its best, minus isp related issues that might pop up randomly. Which for me, shouldn't be an issue. As my cable ISP just done a major upgrade, and my connection is running really well.

But my home network does have a good bit of devices active at times, and with cable internet.. upstream bandwidth is limited. I actually get 940/38, so I lose a good bit with cake on the downstream. But I don't mind, if my gaming is running very well. I know my testing during the first merge of cake in the alpha build, there was for sure some random jitter(ping spiking) going on, and I'm 99.9% sure it was due to cake, handling its traffic a bit funky, when several other devices were actively passing data over my network. Wasn't maxing my internet by far.

 

[jata]

No problem.

Given the speed of your connection and need to tweak settings - I think you should try FlexQOS. It works great and will allow you to give gaming top priority to a single or multiple gaming devices (assuming use use reserved IP addresses for these).

keep us posted on your progress - it would be great if you find the solution using cake and if not you can try FlexQOS

 

[jata]

I forgot to say that there are a few posts on the 386.2 beta main thread that discuss some gaming / jitter issues relating to cake. Is that you posting this info? If not you might find some additional info there.

 

[lilstone87]

Given the speed of your connection and need to tweak settings - I think you should try FlexQOS.

I have used it before, I just like trying both. However a little while back, my internet was bad, due to upstream being saturated on my ISP end at the node level. I like FlexQoS, and likely will use it again. I just want to mess with cake a bit, and see how things are. My internet is now fine though, as my ISP did mid split, which doubled my upstream channels, which also doubled upstream capacity for my node.

I forgot to say that there are a few posts on the 386.2 beta main thread that discuss some gaming / jitter issues relating to cake. Is that you posting this info? If not you might find some additional info there.

Yeah I'm aware of them posts, and no it's not me. But it's good to see, I'm not alone in this, and something is off. Now it's just trying to figure out if it's a setting we can change, that maybe will improve this from happening. Or if it's just a downfall of cake, which is very useful to others, in different areas. Overall I'm not the person who's capable of digging into what might be causing this. I can swap settings, to see if something may help. But I'm not the person who can sit down, and think about what's likely causing this to happen. Someone mentioned ICMP being a low priority with cake, which I'm pretty sure is like that on most QoS systems. Still I see no reason for that to cause jitter spiking at the game level, as gaming packets are sent over UDP, TCP is used to pass game server data, like for COD, stats, and stuff for their SBMM.

 

[jata]

Sounds like you are on the case and doing some good analysis. Hope you find a solution!

 

[RMerlin]

Question - My ISP speeds are 500/20, I currently have CakeQoS set to 400/18.

Is there any harm in exceeding that "350mb" threshold? I know it doesn't support hardware acceleration so I'm obviously not expecting a speed boost, but just out of curiosity, will it work better if I set it to say, 350/18?

The 350 Mbps value I mention is just a very rough estimate. That limit will depend on the router CPU, as well as the type of traffic - NATing 50 torrent connections will be more intensive than NATing one single Speedtest.

 

[lilstone87]

Well I managed to create that file, and save my settings to it. Thank you @jata Now I'm curious after restarting QoS, how do I check the status, to make sure the settings were applied via SSH? Sorry for the noob questions, I'm learning. But I greatly appreciate all info shared. To be honest.. once I added the options I wanted to use, I was lost on how to save the file, and exit it. I ran across something that mentioned using CTRL+O to save file name, and CTRL+X to exit. Both seemed to work LOL. I apologize for being such a noob to this stuff. But I like learning, and I want to be able to do it in the future myself, if needed.

 

[jata]

Well I managed to create that file, and save my settings to it. Thank you @jata Now I'm curious after restarting QoS, how do I check the status, to make sure the settings were applied via SSH? Sorry for the noob questions, I'm learning. But I greatly appreciate all info shared. To be honest.. once I added the options I wanted to use, I was lost on how to save the file, and exit it. I ran across something that mentioned using CTRL+O to save file name, and CTRL+X to exit. Both seemed to work LOL. I apologize for being such a noob to this stuff. But I like learning, and I want to be able to do it in the future myself, if needed.

the easy answer is ... from ssh client use command tc qdisc | grep -E "^qdisc cake"

 

[jata]

this should output 2 lines one for DL and one for UL. eth0 or eth4 will be UL (I think) but you can work this out anyway as the line will include your bandwidth settings... the other one should have ifb4eth0 or ifb4eth4 near the start

and in relation to saving the .add file... use CTRL+X and select yes to save file using nano. just need to open the file again using nano to confirm it is saved correctly

 

[lilstone87]

the easy answer is ... from ssh client use command tc qdisc | grep -E "^qdisc cake"

I greatly appreciate you taking the time, to post all this info for me. Now I know how to changes these settings, and I used this to check, after I enabled QoS, and it came back with the options I added to that file. So it all seems to be working as intended. I'm not afraid to say I'm a noob at certain things. But I do learn, and add that to stuff I know going forward. So it's nice to know how to do this now.

Overall I know soon Merlin will likely have a way to modify these settings within the firmware, or another way, that's easier than this. Which I appreciate him always trying to make things better than before. I see last night he posted something he wants to test with cake, It's cool to see that. Seems him, and the guys helping him merge cake into his firmware, are trying to make things as best as possible. Plus I really like how he listens to feedback, and works on things, that are reasonable.