CakeQOS CakeQOS-Merlin

[ugandy]

Hi,

I just updated to 0.0.6 and looking at the logs, I'm seeing the following repeating message: "kernel: CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_change_station : WLC_SCB_AUTHORIZE sta_flags_mask not set". It looks like it wasn't related to the upgrade as I now look back, it started happening when I installed Cake 0.0.5. I'm just curious as I learn more about using Cake. Thanks!

unrelated to cake. it's there since merlin's 384.16 i think

 

[Wade Coxon]

I thought that I read early in this thread that Cake would run with Runner and Flow Cache enabled. I guess I was mistaken. That's a bummer because I'm sure that having those disabled will prevent hitting the router from reaching higher inbound speeds.

Not sure, maybe it does.

Could try testing again with the following:

#Clean up from previous settings
/opt/sbin/tc qdisc del dev eth0 ingress 2>/dev/null
/opt/sbin/tc qdisc del dev ifb9eth0 root 2>/dev/null
/opt/sbin/tc qdisc del dev eth0 root 2>/dev/null
ip link del ifb9eth0

rmmod sch_cake 2>/dev/null
fc enable
runner enable


#Set up new uplink-only settings
insmod /opt/lib/modules/sch_cake.ko 2>/dev/null

#WAN-eth0
/opt/sbin/tc qdisc replace dev eth0 root cake bandwidth <bandwidth>mbit besteffort nat

If my connection had a chance of stressing cake, I would do it myself .

You could also run the last line with "ack-filter" to really optimise an asymmetric link too.

 

[Wade Coxon]

if you set the UL limit to 1Mbps, you should be able to confirm it is working in UL and that you get full speed on DL, no?

Yea, but my download only goes up to 30Mbps, so I will never see the CPU throttling It's always going to be full speed for me, acceleration or not.

 

[ugandy]

Yea, but my download only goes up to 30Mbps, so I will never see the CPU throttling It's always going to be full speed for me, acceleration or not.

i see.

 

[ugandy]

Yea, but my download only goes up to 30Mbps, so I will never see the CPU throttling It's always going to be full speed for me, acceleration or not.

i don't think cake works with HW accel enabled.

i set the UL limit to 1Mbps with your script

and in dslreports i got 500Mbps down and 20Mbps up


but i think that the asymmetrical cake setup is worth it!

 

[lilstone87]

That's a bummer because I'm sure that having those disabled will prevent hitting the router from reaching higher inbound speeds.

Yup, as when it requires the CPU to do all the work, you're limited to a single core, doesn't matter if the router has a total of four cores. That single core, and clock speed, is what matters. So even for something like the AX88U, you're limited to around 330-400mbps max. When the CPU is the one handling the load.

 

[ugandy]

Yup, as when it requires the CPU to do all the work, you're limited to a single core, doesn't matter if the router has a total of four cores. That single core, and clock speed, is what matters. So even for something like the AX88U, you're limited to around 330-400mbps max. When the CPU is the one handling the load.

which also probably means that if downloading 100GB file at full throttle (400Mbps), the cpu might get too hot(?)

sounds that the recommendation to keep cake symmetrical and below 300Mbps (or what the cpu can handle) is the right one, if using cake

 

[lilstone87]

which also probably means that if I;m downloading 100GB file at full throttle (500Mbps), the cpu will get too hot?

I'm sure it will raise the temps a bit. You might be okay temp wise. Still you will be maxing out the one core that's handling the WAN-LAN traffic. I'm sure you can watch the main gui page, where it shows the load of each core. When you go to push your WAN-LAN speeds, one of the cores will max itself out.

 

[ugandy]

I'm sure it will raise the temps a bit. You might be okay temp wise. Still you will be maxing out the one core that's handling the WAN-LAN traffic. I'm sure you can watch the main gui page, where it shows the load of each core. When you go to push your WAN-LAN speeds, one of the cores will max itself out.

yes, 1 core does max out.

interestingly i didn't see the corresponding process in htop

 

[Wade Coxon]

i don't think cake works with HW accel enabled.

i set the UL limit to 1Mbps with your script

and in dslreports i got 500Mbps down and 20Mbps up


but i think that the asymmetrical cake setup is worth it!

Why did you set upload to 1Mbps though? You should just leave that at whatever you normally use for cake.

Interesting though that your download reached 500 though. 560 was without any QoS running? and you got only 400 last time you tested?

I wonder if that was to do with leaving hardwar enabled, or was it the ack-filter setting?

 

[ugandy]

Why did you set upload to 1Mbps though? You should just leave that at whatever you normally use for cake.

Interesting though that your download reached 500 though. 560 was without any QoS running? and you got only 400 last time you tested?

I wonder if that was to do with leaving hardware enabled, or was it the ack-filter setting?

i set it at 1Mbps to see if cake was actually limiting the UL.

with the HW accel off and cake on UL only, i got 500 down and 20 up.
close to the max i got yesterday with cake off: 560Mbps
(a 50Mbps swing on dslreports is not uncommon on my comcrastic connection)

looks like:
cake needs HW accell off
with HW accel off, and cake in UL only, the DL is CPU limited to 400Mbps (ax88)
400 drops to 300 if cake on DL too


any DL bandwidth over 300Mbps will be wasted with cake, but since i was planning to downgrade my comcast connection from 600Mbps to 300Mbps anyway, this is not a biggie for me.

my problem now, is that my comcast upload bandwidth changes during the day, anywhere from 20Mbps to 3Mbps (workhours/covid), so it is hard to pick the right cake UL limit...


i've never been able to reproduce @L&LD 500Mbps results with symmetrical cake. that result was nice!

 

[L&LD]

@ugandy I'll mention again that I was using a wired i7 based computer and the initial version of CakeQoS when I got those results. I will see if I have time later this week to repeat my testing with the latest version now available (I'm curious too).

 

[maxbraketorque]

Not sure, maybe it does.

Could try testing again with the following:

...

If my connection had a chance of stressing cake, I would do it myself .

You could also run the last line with "ack-filter" to really optimise an asymmetric link too.

I would have tried this morning before I had to start work, but I ended up with kid-duty. I'll try it tomorrow morning, but it looks like ugandy has already provided some testing observations.

i set it at 1Mbps to see if cake was actually limiting the UL.

with the HW accel off and cake on UL only, i got 500 down and 20 up.
close to the max i got yesterday with cake off: 560Mbps
(a 50Mbps swing on dslreports is not uncommon on my comcrastic connection)

looks like:
cake needs HW accell off
with HW accel off, and cake in UL only, the DL is CPU limited to 400Mbps (ax88)
400 drops to 300 if cake on DL too


any DL bandwidth over 300Mbps will be wasted with cake, but since i was planning to downgrade my comcast connection from 600Mbps to 300Mbps anyway, this is not a biggie for me.

my problem now, is that my comcast upload bandwidth changes during the day, anywhere from 20Mbps to 3Mbps (workhours/covid), so it is hard to pick the right cake UL limit...


i've never been able to reproduce @L&LD 500Mbps results with symmetrical cake. that result was nice!

This is a bit confusing. What speeds are you paying for on Comcast? And you observed 500 mbps inbound and 20 mbps outbound with Cake active only on the UL and Runner and Flow Cache disabled?

 

[ugandy]

@ugandy I'll mention again that I was using a wired i7 based computer and the initial version of CakeQoS when I got those results. I will see if I have time later this week to repeat my testing with the latest version now available (I'm curious too).

thanks! maybe test with spdmerlin on the router?
cake is good but fiber is healthier

 

[ugandy]

This is a bit confusing. What speeds are you paying for on Comcast? And you observed 500 mbps inbound and 20 mbps outbound with Cake active only on the UL and Runner and Flow Cache disabled?

contracted comcast line is 600/15

cake off: on a normal day: 550/17 (my netgear cm500 can't go higher)
(UL will vary throughout the day(!), anywhere from ~4 to 20 with neighborhood load)


cake on DL/UL, I got: 300/15
cake on UL only, I got : 400/15

cake only worked when Runner and Flow Cache were disabled.


with cake off, every time my UL line is saturated, the latency goes from the unloaded 10ms average, to close to 2000ms, and packets are sometimes lost.
which is visible at least every 30min when spdmerlin runs
or someone uploads a large file to the WAN (often).

so i either use cake or I try the simple qos bandwidth limiter, to cap the UL speed to see if it is enough. limiter will probably be enough to prevent packet loss, but will not help bufferbloat, i imagine.
undecided. i think cake also makes different sources traffic be treated fairer, no?

EDIT: looks like the firmware qos bandwidth limiter wouldn't help me, since it can set limits per client, but i can't set a general limit. cake it is!

 

[jwortiz]

I'm liking my Cake.

I'm working from home, doing the remote technical support thing using WebEx and/or Zoom sessions with customers along with all my streaming entertainment to the Roku streaming devices and my youngest college age daughter at home doing summer college classes. I've seen a noticeable improvement overall with my networking experience at home. Awesome work guys! It's appreciated!

 

[heysoundude]

That would be a cool script to use the data collected by YazFi's spdMerlin to make on the fly adjustments for cakeQoS.

wouldn't you need to have Cake trigger a speedtest for that? spdMerlin tests every 30min - depending on how dynamic your network is, that may be ideal, not enough or too much

 

[ugandy]

wouldn't you need to have Cake trigger a speedtest for that? spdMerlin tests every 30min - depending on how dynamic your network is, that may be ideal, not enough or too much

and spdmerlin results are affected by cake. so it would need to disable cake during test, possibly degrading service quality while speed test is performed.
but sure would be nice to have an automated way of estimating line bandwidth changes during the day and automatically adjust cake limits.
the autorate-ingress was too erratic unfortunately

 

[heysoundude]

and spdmerlin results are affected by cake. so it would need to disable cake during test, possibly degrading service quality while speed test is performed.
but sure would be nice to have an automated way of estimating line bandwidth changes during the day and automatically adjust cake limits.
the autorate-ingress was too erratic unfortunately

@Jack Yaz was working with someone on something like that as I recall.... @squidbilly ? somebody more familiar with the scripting would have to see if there are things there that are useful here

 

[roboots21]

So I'm slightly confused on how I should set my DL/UL limits on cake. My advertised speed is 100/10, but I consistently see 117/11 when I run spdMerlin (only overnight as to not saturate the network during the day at all). Should I set to 90% of 117/11 or to 90% of 100/10? Or 95%? I know it's a test and what works best, but looking for the most realistic starting point. Thanks!