Discussions and setups with QoS (N66U)

[lindvalll]

Hi folks!

Hope this thead isnt already created here...couldnt for the world get the 'search forum' function to return a result on word 'qos'

Anyway, Im all up in QoS now and have a few questions to people who have good knowledge about this...

Ive red different things about setting up Tomato/DD-WRT but cant fint much about Asus QoS.

The questions on my mind as of now are:
1. Do I put actual bandwidth in "global" upload/download speeds, or about 70-85% of that - as according to Tomatos QoS.

2. What class is "undefined" traffic considered? Or do I need to create a rule that says "all ports, tcp/udp" is Lowest?

Everybody, feel free to add your questions or tips/tricks/pitfalls about setting up QoS...

My setup and req. of QoS:

-30/5Mbit
-Have torrent running 24/7

Id like to prioritize web, mail and video streaming (flash, youtube etc.) before torrent.

So I created a rule for which 'undefined' traffic is put in (all ports, tcp/udp) - torrent traffic will be here. - lowest

And then a few rules on port 80, 443 and 1935:

- 80, 443 (tcp/udp), transfer 0-512 (web) - highest
- Asus stock mail preset - highest
- 80, 443 and 1935 (tcp/udp) transfer 512->above - high

(found out using network tracing tool that many flash streaming sites exclusively uses port 1935)

Im not very familier with QoS so dont know if this setup is optimal, so any input would be helpful...

 

[sinshiva]

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=14735

read this over and over again. it has every important thing i can think of to say about qos and i'm too lazy to do it all over again, sorry. that's why i tried to get it all out the first time in that thread.

for the love of god, do not define torrents

[edit/] basically, either replicate my settings or don't use QoS at all. if you veer off even a hair from my settings, anybody expecting perfect latency for gaming will abhor your network. i am rather good at online shooters, this was my focus for 'perfect' qos

the main reason i'm annoyed is that you both read and acknowledged my response to you in the merlin38 thread, then you completely disregarded what i said. sorry.

however, do continue to ask questions if you have any. but please thoroughly read the linked thread above

 

[lindvalll]

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=14735

read this over and over again. it has every important thing i can think of to say about qos and i'm too lazy to do it all over again, sorry. that's why i tried to get it all out the first time in that thread.

for the love of god, do not define torrents

[edit/] basically, either replicate my settings or don't use QoS at all. if you veer off even a hair from my settings, anybody expecting perfect latency for gaming will abhor your network. i am rather good at online shooters, this was my focus for 'perfect' qos

the main reason i'm annoyed is that you both read and acknowledged my response to you in the merlin38 thread, then you completely disregarded what i said. sorry.

however, do continue to ask questions if you have any. but please thoroughly read the linked thread above

Sorry if you feel that way, but I stated this thread as more of a discussion and posting of setups.

The right setup for you might not be remotely right for the next person...Your QoS seems to be optimized for gaming, but I wanna handle torrent and other stuff.

Btw, thanks for the tip about not creating a "default" rule which torrent will be claissified as.

Anyone successfully configured QoS for perfect streaming? Youtube, flash and stuff like that...

 

[sinshiva]

i did some pretty extensive testing. basically, the only thing i'd recommend doing different from my setup is playing with the bandwidth limits under qos priorities and such. (and really, i dont recommend even this)

i tried defining torrents at every level while setting 27015 at highest and various other levels. in EVERY case, this caused my in game latency to jump from what it should be, ~25ms in counterstrike to ~85+ ms while a torrent client was up, and no matter how fast it was downloading. this is /awful/ latency. merely by removing the torrent port from the qos list and keeping the game port set for high or highest brought my latency back down to as if i wasn't torrenting at all. undefined is equivalent, but not equal to medium priority, though. this means the only way to prioritize something over torrents is to set it for either 'high' or 'highest'.

since i use things like netflix and smb, i wanted those to get all the bandwidth they needed even if torrents were going on, to ensure smooth playback, so i set things that need bandwidth prioritized higher than torrents to high, which only leaves 'highest' for things that need perfect latency even over netflix.

by setting dns, port 53 to highest, this ensures that stuff downloading doesn't cause sites to not begin to load because they could never find the website to begin with.

so, by using a simple configuration like;

53 highest
27015 highest < steam game
80 high
443 high
and leaving torrents undefined

i can get perfect latency in a game, or browse the internet while streaming netflix and downloading over torrents, all without having to limit the bandwidth of anything and all at the same time, on a mere 10mbit connection. mind you, this limits how many netflix streams i can use at once because 10mbit isnt a lot, but being able to do all of the above is something people are willing to pay for.

the rest of what i posted in the thread is mostly for things like additional games, smb file transfer being prioritized over torrents and lots of other little things that are a little more nuance, but still important

since netflix buffers while streaming and usually faster than it needs, it never hiccups.

so pretty much, by adding to the simple config above for what you use and following the rule: highest is for what needs low latency + dns, high is for what needs bandwidth priority over torrents, leave torrents undefined, use 100% everything under priorities, uncheck everything at the bottom, set up/down to 1000 at the auto page, absolutely everything you use your connection within the confines of your available bandwidth will be better than i have ever heard anybody else achieving, period.

[edit] and do not use port ranges or comma separated ports. they mess up qos almost as bad as torrents. i tried setting 15 comma separated ports and i almost couldn't even get the router to come back up

yes, this is a direct challenge to every human on earth.

 

[lindvalll]

Big thank you for sharing this! Will try a lot of things when I come home from work...

 

[oversim]

Ok, never used it, but I tried it and ...re-switched to OFF

So, what I did..

1) Adjusted bandwidth settings according to my DSL (12/1)
2) Defined in highest priority http, https, ecc pre defined rules
3) Defined a generic rule in lowest priority
4) Started up Transmission with 2 torrents in download

Torrent upload got all upload bandwidth disagree with generic rule (lowest priority, only 300Kb in upload).

Switched off QoS and say goodbye to it....

 

[lindvalll]

i did some pretty extensive testing. basically, the only thing i'd recommend doing different from my setup is playing with the bandwidth limits under qos priorities and such. (and really, i dont recommend even this)

i tried defining torrents at every level while setting 27015 at highest and various other levels. in EVERY case, this caused my in game latency to jump from what it should be, ~25ms in counterstrike to ~85+ ms while a torrent client was up, and no matter how fast it was downloading. this is /awful/ latency. merely by removing the torrent port from the qos list and keeping the game port set for high or highest brought my latency back down to as if i wasn't torrenting at all. undefined is equivalent, but not equal to medium priority, though. this means the only way to prioritize something over torrents is to set it for either 'high' or 'highest'.

since i use things like netflix and smb, i wanted those to get all the bandwidth they needed even if torrents were going on, to ensure smooth playback, so i set things that need bandwidth prioritized higher than torrents to high, which only leaves 'highest' for things that need perfect latency even over netflix.

by setting dns, port 53 to highest, this ensures that stuff downloading doesn't cause sites to not begin to load because they could never find the website to begin with.

so, by using a simple configuration like;

53 highest
27015 highest < steam game
80 high
443 high
and leaving torrents undefined

i can get perfect latency in a game, or browse the internet while streaming netflix and downloading over torrents, all without having to limit the bandwidth of anything and all at the same time, on a mere 10mbit connection. mind you, this limits how many netflix streams i can use at once because 10mbit isnt a lot, but being able to do all of the above is something people are willing to pay for.

the rest of what i posted in the thread is mostly for things like additional games, smb file transfer being prioritized over torrents and lots of other little things that are a little more nuance, but still important

since netflix buffers while streaming and usually faster than it needs, it never hiccups.

so pretty much, by adding to the simple config above for what you use and following the rule: highest is for what needs low latency + dns, high is for what needs bandwidth priority over torrents, leave torrents undefined, use 100% everything under priorities, uncheck everything at the bottom, set up/down to 1000 at the auto page, absolutely everything you use your connection within the confines of your available bandwidth will be better than i have ever heard anybody else achieving, period.

[edit] and do not use port ranges or comma separated ports. they mess up qos almost as bad as torrents. i tried setting 15 comma separated ports and i almost couldn't even get the router to come back up

yes, this is a direct challenge to every human on earth.

So I ended up with something like this:

http://i39.tinypic.com/25rm4ps.jpg

Settings under priorities are untouched.

 

[sinshiva]

i would, at the very least, set 53 to highest

 

[lindvalll]

Alright, consider it done. If I understood it correctly port 53 is for file transfer (and other network, not wan-lan?, communication)???

 

[sinshiva]

no, 53 is the default DNS port, used for converting a FQDN such as google.com into their appropriate IP address

for typical windows network file transfers, those are the SMB ports; the most important of which are 445 and 139, i believe

 

[lindvalll]

no, 53 is the default DNS port, used for converting a FQDN such as google.com into their appropriate IP address

for typical windows network file transfers, those are the SMB ports; the most important of which are 445 and 139, i believe

Thx for all your help!

 

[aht961]

I have just started to play with QoS in oder to improve the problems (interrupts/glitches) related to the streaming / transcoding from my linux set-top cable box (LAN > WAN). I am using RT-N66U with fw xxx.374.38-2-em.

I have a cable modem connection (350M/20M). Using the ISP's own speed test as well as the well known Ookla's speed test I could get speeds like 233-255M download and about 15M upload when connected directly to the Cisco cable modem using a iMac desktop. After connecting via the RT-N66U router, my download speed slows down a little bit (from 233-255 to about 200M) the upload speed remaining unchanged (15M).

I followed the guidelines provided by sinshiva and others, and read a little bit from the internet when adjusting the settings for the QoS. When it is ON, my download speed goes down under 100M, upload speed remaining unchanged. If I turn the QoS off, then I am back to the download speed around 200M).

I tried different bandwidth settings (13/200, 13/230, 13/350) which did not make any difference. I read that these values should be about 85-90% of the speed attained. I put the priority values all to 100% as suggested. Played with these figures etc.

What am I doing wrong? What is the point for QoS if I halve my download speed? Is it only for priorisation of the upload band?

 

[sinshiva]

for that kind of bandwidth, with QoS ON/HW Accel off, you should probably consider a newer dual core router like the ac56/ac68. you'd probably see dramatic improvement over the n66's single core.

did you try setting up and down both to 1000 ? still, you should upgrade

 

[aht961]

Thank you sinshiva for the prompt reply as before

for that kind of bandwidth,

Is that good or bad with regard to the bandwidth? In theory, I should not have any problems with regard to the SD or even HD video-streams with a 15MB upload speed. Yet, the image freezes every 2-5 secs. With QoS on and the streaming ports 8001/8002 given the highest priority and the transfers like 1500/3500 set, the problem gets sorted out, however at the expense of halved download speed. My son plays (heavily) games and he says that he does not have any problems (either PC or Playsation).

did you try setting up and down both to 1000 ?

I did that to no avail.

ps: even though this part goes off topic, I noticed the same thing with the child-lock. If I use the keyword or URL restrictions, the speeds go almost 1/3 of what is without the locks - so I needed to turn it off. Is that also because of RT-N66U - and you think it is worth to invest in a new router - I thought this was good/new enough ?

 

[sinshiva]

np; in regards to the streaming ports, i generally would recommend leaving those on high, rather than highest; leaving latency-intensive apps for highest.

you mention your upload speed regarding the streaming; are you streaming to another location ?

and yes, i definitely think a newer dual core router will solve a lot of your problems. I think the n66 is a great router, but i'm personally going to be snagging an ac56 since it's a pretty awesome value for the price

mind posting screenshots of your QoS ports and priorities?

 

[aht961]

mind posting screenshots of your QoS ports and priorities?

Of course, I don't mind - please find them attached. Hope the language does not let you down
ps: it is in Finnish: KORKEIN = Highest, KORKEA = High. I assume you could guess the column headings.

 

[sinshiva]

excellent, i have stuff for you to do.

personally, i have minimum bandwidth also set all to 100% on priorities

i see you have comma separated ports like your (53, 37, etc.)

remove all those and add each port individually. comma separated ports made a big impact on my router. i tried using 15 comma separated ports once and my router froze up. however, i can have a seemlingly endless list of individual ports in my list and everything remains very quick.

like this; http://s1067.photobucket.com/user/avihsnis/media/crazy_qos_list_zps1d81cded.jpg.html

so, try breaking up all the comma separated ports into individual rules and see how that impacts your performance

[edit/] unfortunately, it does appear you are limited to 128 ports in the webui, but i don't think that's a hardware limitation, just the webui

but after doing some research, it does seem that port ranges /probably/ work ok. i just suspect that only listing individual ports is optimal

 

[aht961]

so, try breaking up all the comma separated ports into individual rules and see how that impacts your performance

I did that, but had no impact on the performance. Please find attached the screenshots of the speed test. The names should be self explanatory. The bottom line is: with QoS ON, the download is the less than the half of the speed with it is OFF - irregardless of the way how the ports are set (each separately or combined with "," or ":"). The upload speed remains the same.

 

[sinshiva]

sorry, fell asleep. yea, wasn't sure whether that would help with your bandwidth, it just just something i noticed could lock up the router if there were enough of them, so i figured it affected the router to some lesser degree even with less than 15. looks like upgrading the router is your best bet

worth a try, at least

 

[CooCooCaChoo]

for that kind of bandwidth...

He means you have so much bandwidth you should just consider turning off QoS completely and just running hardware acceleration. QoS was really meant for a time when there wasn't enough bandwidth for the things you wanted to do.

Right now even on my 50/10 connection, which really runs at 57/11, I'm not running QoS at all, just TCP Reno. Everything is running well because there's enough bandwidth to go around for everybody.