Gbit QoS, router choice

[jonkul]

Hi!

Anyone happen to know of a router that can handle full gbit speeds with QoS enabled? Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Asus newer routers even?
Thanks!

 

[mikeone]

How much client will be connected ? what type of devices ?
more infos will help us help you

 

[jonkul]

A server with some heavy torrenting, and a gaming PC. Ideally I would want to use the full Gbit bandwidth but without the ping spikes.

 

[mikeone]

A good Consumer level Router should do it, any 4 core asus router preferably with merlin firmware support would work great.
You can look for the newer RT-AX88 with Merlin support or the GT-AC5300 is quiet good since a lot of bugs have been fixed

 

[Trip]

Assuming the QoS schema that you're using is offloadable to hardware acceleration, then yes, most any consumer router (most of which are running on ARM-based SoC's) will work. Probably. This is usually just the land of old-fashioned class-based traffic prioritization.

That said, if you're doing QoS with anywhere near a more modern approach to solving the problem, ie. active queue management and running a queuing discipline such as fq_codel or cake on the link, or running anything on the box whatsoever that requires routing be in-software via the CPU, then no, any consumer-level router will most certainly no do it. For 1Gb/s, ie. 2Gb/s aggregate (up + down) throughput, you'll need a higher-clock x86-based architecture running the *nix-based gateway/firewall distro of your preference (OpenWRT, pfSense, Untangle, Sophos UTM, etc. etc. etc.). Best bang for the buck in this realm would be a Protectli or Qotom embedded Intel i5 or i7 box with all-Intel NICs, or that in a SFF or tower PC, if you don't mind paying the higher electric bill. Probably a $500-700 project by the time you've added an SSD and RAM. Then you wire in discrete switching and wifi and you've got a setup that will absolutely destroy any consumer all-in-one router for sheer routing capability of basically anything you want to run, whether offloadable or not.

The only other alternative would be a vendor-based firewall from the likes of Fortinet, Sophos, etc. or a multi-services routing platform like Juniper SRX, but unless you find a steal of a deal on a refurb, you're looking at way fewer feature per dollar (albeit, QA-tested ones), so likely out of the question for a home router, for most people anyways.

 

[L&LD]

If you have a symmetrical 1Gbps up/down ISP connection, you don't want to be running QoS.

The RT-AC86U is the best example of a consumer router that I've used that most closely approaches what you're asking for (I have the same need too). But I don't use QoS on it.

See FreshJR's take on QoS on Asus routers and his great script that makes big and obvious improvements, even at default levels.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/r...ements-custom-rules-and-inner-workings.36836/

As Trip has suggested above, to get true 1Gbps up/down QoS network, it will be much more expensive than any consumer router or even the cheaper models of the brands that you mention.

FreshJR doesn't recommend using QoS with 1Gbps connections currently with Asus routers but running a Gbps network with the RT-AC86U there have been no issues for me for latency, even with using AiProtection and all the scripts in my signature too.

 

[coxhaus]

I doubt 1 gig really needs QoS unless you are a business.

I have been thinking about how well a layer 3 switch will work if you use QoS on it. Anybody done this? I have the layer 3 switch but with todays internet speeds I don't find a need for QoS.

I have my daughter's Real-estate business setup using a Cisco small business router with 15 realtors connected to business cable. I still don't find a need for QoS.

 

[jonkul]

You can look for the newer RT-AX88 with Merlin support or the GT-AC5300 is quiet good since a lot of bugs have been fixed

Can anyone confirm that the RT-AX88 can handle full Gbit throughput with fq_codel QoS active? My current RT-AC87U (dual core) can't, since the HW accel. gets disabled. Getting capped at around 5-600 Mbit or so, with 100% router CPU usage. The RT-AX88 has higher clock frequencies and a newer architecture though, so it just might. Would love a confirmation from someone.

Best bang for the buck in this realm would be a Protectli or Qotom embedded Intel i5 or i7 box with all-Intel NICs

Thanks, nice info. I'd prefer not to go the x86 route due to the cost and power usage, but if I have to I might. Just want to see if anyone know of a dedicated HW solution first.

See FreshJR's take on QoS on Asus routers and his great script that makes big and obvious improvements, even at default levels.
FreshJR doesn't recommend using QoS with 1Gbps connections currently with Asus routers but running a Gbps network with the RT-AC86U there have been no issues for me for latency, even with using AiProtection and all the scripts in my signature too.

Thanks, I'll check that script out! No, I can just use QoS with my current RT-AC87U too of course, but I don't like the bandwidth hit.

I doubt 1 gig really needs QoS unless you are a business.

No of course I don't NEED it. =) This is a pure luxury problem and an excuse for buying new stuff. I could just bandwidth cap my server to 800 Mbit and not use QoS. But, speed is crucial for RSS torrenting and ratio build, cause by the time your DL is completed there has to be someone left to seed to, and the other guys are on seed boxes in the same server hall with LAN speeds.
Also, I want solid ping while coming as close as possible to maxing out the connection.

An easy solution would be to just let the PC have higher priority than the server, but I didn't manage to get that working very well with my current router, as it sets a hard limit on bandwidth on anything with less than top priority.

 

[Trip]

I doubt 1 gig really needs QoS unless you are a business.

[...]No of course I don't NEED it. =) This is a pure luxury problem and an excuse for buying new stuff. I could just bandwidth cap my server to 800 Mbit and not use QoS.[...]An easy solution would be to just let the PC have higher priority than the server, but I didn't manage to get that working very well with my current router, as it sets a hard limit on bandwidth on anything with less than top priority.

One could argue the closer the link speed across interfaces, the less additional QoS, queuing and/or shaping disciplines are required at that hop. Still, even on multi-hundred MB/s+ WAN links NAT'ing to gigabit LANs, I've seen plenty of times where activating an AQM beyond pfifo_fast does improve ping consistency and jitter. So flow efficiency does improve, almost universally, regardless of link speed. Rather, the question is whether the amount of added benefit is worth going out of your way to implement. In cases where WAN and LAN link speeds are closely matched (ie. both gigabit in this case), and you're also not running anything else that would require you to go to x86, I would say you could go without it, save your pennies, and stick with an ARM or MIPS box.

 

[coxhaus]

I don't think 1 server can keep a 1 gig internet connection busy. It would be too much data over time.

 

[jonkul]

I don't think 1 server can keep a 1 gig internet connection busy. It would be too much data over time.

Yes, not a 24/7 load.

 

[pege63]

Depends of the router you have, you have to Enable Hardware Offload.

This show Ubiquiti Edgerouter X Enable Hardware Offload Speed Test on a 50USD router.

So far i have not seen any router at all with a 2.5G/5G/10GB WAN port, there is a SFP port on the Ubiquiti Edgerouter X SFP you can make this port to a WAN port for fiber like i have. But you need a SFP module and a fiber cable.

Below are available commands to enable offloading and increase performance (For ER-X, ER‑X‑SFP, EP-R6):

configure
set system offload hwnat enable
set system offload ipsec enable
commit
save
exit

 

[sfx2000]

So far i have not seen any router at all with a 2.5G/5G/10GB WAN port, there is a SFP port on the Ubiquiti Edgerouter X SFP you can make this port to a WAN port for fiber like i have. But you need a SFP module and a fiber cable.

You haven't seen my router stuff

My little Science Project did full 1G w/QoS in a userland driver, bypassing the kernel on Armada 38x @ 1.6GHz - same code on AMD64 can run 40GB on high end Xeon's...

That's why Science Project got bought...

More recently, doing similar things on other chips - QCAtheros - AR9531 (MIPS24k) - 100Mbit solid, as that's as the nic's and the switch can do... we cheat a bit compared to Ralink/Broadcom MIPS, as AR is big-endian, and we leverage that in that little chip