Windows 10 Updates and QOS

[bbunge]

I have spent the past week trying to keep windows 10 updates from robbing all of my bandwidth. First I set WUDO to PC’s on my local network. Then I enabled QOS on my RT-N66R which was running Merlin 380.59. I created another File Transfer rule for ports 80,443 UDP 521~. I was not too pleased as the Real-time Traffic Monitor did not display accurate data. I switched to John’s fork V18B9 and was pleased to discover that everything QOS seemed to work! As a check I also tried Asus Beta N66U_90043802695 which I was not pleased with after running Merlin/John’s firmware.
I am now back to John’s V18B9 with the default QOS settings and the upload/download values set to the values Speedtest gave me (yes, I know about the lower upload value recommendation). Windows and Linux updates are throttled and allow the girls to continue web surfing and watching videos. However, I seem to not be able to allow greater download speed for updates by changing QOS rules or priority. Right now I do not have a rule for UDP. Just the four rules that are in the Rule List by default.
I realize that QOS can be complicated. I have Googled and read a lot but am hoping a wiser head may have some recommendations. Thanks!

 

[L&LD]

How many Windows computers are updating at once? What is your ISP speed? How many other devices are viewing videos? Wired or wireless? Laptops, desktops (with adaptors), or handheld devices?

Have you tested for the best channel on each band? How far away from the router are the WiFi connected devices and how many obstacles is the signal going through and on which band?

I have rarely seen this issue for my customers and their ISP speeds are usually the lowest (business class) compared to home ISP packages (which offer higher speeds and lower prices too).

 

[bbunge]

How many Windows computers are updating at once? One
What is your ISP speed? 10 MB/S down, .85 MB/S up
How many other devices are viewing videos? None during test
Wired or wireless? Wired through GIG switch or direct to router
Laptops, desktops (with adaptors), or handheld devices? Desktops

Have you tested for the best channel on each band? How far away from the router are the WiFi connected devices and how many obstacles is the signal going through and on which band? No issues with WIFI. Small house with 55 db signal at farthest point. All tests done wired

I have rarely seen this issue for my customers and their ISP speeds are usually the lowest (business class) compared to home ISP packages (which offer higher speeds and lower prices too).

 

[sfx2000]

This might help...

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...es-reducing-bandwidth?forum=win10itprogeneral

 

[bbunge]

This might help...

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...es-reducing-bandwidth?forum=win10itprogeneral

No help as I've been through this before and I do not want to set up a Windows Update Server. I refurbish PC's to give away and try to get them fully updated. As I stated, the Traditional QOS is working to limit update bandwidth. What I need is how to "adjust" those settings. bb

 

[sfx2000]

If you look inside the thread, it identifies the Microsoft hosts, and then you can adjust priorities accordingly....

 

[bbunge]

If you look inside the thread, it identifies the Microsoft hosts, and then you can adjust priorities accordingly....

Well, as I stated in the first place, adjusting priorities seems to do no good. Default Priority Level is Low, File Transfer is low for both port 80 and 443 TCP, Min Reserved bandwidth (upload) at 5% Changing any of the settings seems to not change the rate of the download or upload for File Transfer.

 

[Stephen Becker]

Keep in mind that you cannot control the rate at which Microsoft sends you information. All QoS can do is drop packets that don't fit its policy (packets which have already used your bandwidth), which is very wasteful, but typically the sending server will figure out what you are doing and slow down their transmission.

Also, Reserved bandwidth does not mean max bandwidth, that is what the Max setting is for.

Food for thought. Windows updates are not all that large and only happen once a month. It is highly unlikely that they are actually causing you a problem. It might seem nice to say "I want updates to only use 5% of my bandwidth" but in reality, a simple FIFO queue without QoS would probably work just fine. QoS is adding a LOT of processing overhead to the router CPU for every packet (even if they are set to high priority). I suggest leaving it turned off unless there is a real probably you are trying to fix.

 

[bbunge]

Windows 10 updates not large? Once a month? I stated earlier that I refurbish PC's to give away. So Windows Updates are a couple times a day event for my network. Sure, I could use Update Accelerator in IPFire to cache updates like I do at our production site. But I thought I would give QOS a try and maybe help others out with some shared information. There are lots of questions about QOS but no definate answers. Just vague suggestions which do not help.

 

[KevTech]

You may want to look into running Tomato firmware as it has more QoS/bandwidth limiter options than Asus stock or Merlin firmware.

Here is an emulator you could look at to see the available options in Tomato for QoS and bandwidth limiter: http://victek.is-a-geek.com/virtual/tomatok26/status-index.html

Shibby Tomato is pretty good and stable: http://tomato.groov.pl/

 

[Stephen Becker]

Each computer will check for updates every 22 hours (with a random -4 hour offset), that event uses very little bandwidth because most of the time the result will be no updates.

If a patch is available (MS releases patches on the 2nd Tuesday of the month), then the computers will download their patches at the time they check-in. Any given month typically has between 20-30 patches that might be a few MB each, so not a huge amount there either.

Windows 10 does add something new to the mix. Of course the initial update to Windows 10 is massive, but that is a one-time thing you can control. Also, about once a quarter MS releases a feature update to Windows 10 that might be quite a bit larger than typical patches, but it is something that happens only a few times a year.

Windows 10 added a new peer-to-peer update feature that allows updates to be shared among computers to avoid multiple downloads. Sounds great, but it will also share updates with other computers on the internet (this might be where your problem is coming from).
Read this blog, sounds like you might want to change the option to be Local LAN only.
http://www.howtogeek.com/224981/how...ading-updates-to-other-pcs-over-the-internet/

 

[bbunge]

Each computer will check for updates every 22 hours (with a random -4 hour offset), that event uses very little bandwidth because most of the time the result will be no updates.

If a patch is available (MS releases patches on the 2nd Tuesday of the month), then the computers will download their patches at the time they check-in. Any given month typically has between 20-30 patches that might be a few MB each, so not a huge amount there either.

Windows 10 does add something new to the mix. Of course the initial update to Windows 10 is massive, but that is a one-time thing you can control. Also, about once a quarter MS releases a feature update to Windows 10 that might be quite a bit larger than typical patches, but it is something that happens only a few times a year.

Windows 10 added a new peer-to-peer update feature that allows updates to be shared among computers to avoid multiple downloads. Sounds great, but it will also share updates with other computers on the internet (this might be where your problem is coming from).
Read this blog, sounds like you might want to change the option to be Local LAN only.
http://www.howtogeek.com/224981/how...ading-updates-to-other-pcs-over-the-internet/

Guess you are still not reading my initial post where I said "First I set WUDO to PC’s on my local network." WUDO is the MS update sharing feature. I also stated that I refurbish PC's so every PC I work on will need updates when the OS is installed be it Windows, Linux, or Mac. Sorry I was too technical for you...

 

[atkinsom]

No you're not too technical bunge just arrogant! Try a few thank you's and maybe people might stick their neck out for you Good luck!

 

[sfx2000]

Let's step back and everyone take a chill-pill...

This isn't a Router/QOS issue, this is a Windows Update problem, and there's little we can do to solve it, other than provide some helpful hints...

 

[Stephen Becker]

You are totally right, I did not fully read your OP, just skimmed some key words and started typing. I am sorry my reply was not very helpful. After fully reading, it sounds like you have been able to make QoS work about as well as can be expected using a single router implementation.

Keep in mind that QoS was designed to run on private networks, where the admin has full control over all routers in question. For QoS, the router that matters most is directly connected to the slowest connection in the chain, on the side of the sender. That is because it can chose how to prioritize packets being sent over that slow link and make the best use of it. The router on the other side gets what it gets, all it can do is choose to forward or drop, but dropping a packet after it transversed the slow link would be a huge waste.

In your case, MS is the sender and the connection from your ISP to your house is the slowest link. That means your ISP's router is on the sender's side of that slow link and holds all the cards. Your router is the one that gets what it is given. It may see traffic that doesn't match your QoS settings, but what should it do? Drop data that has already been downloaded just because QoS didn't want it? The damage is already done, you got data you consider to be low priority, maybe there is something else more important waiting on the other side, but you don't have it and QoS can't change that. Dropping the packet (forcing a re-transmission) does not help at that instant, and makes things worse a few moments later when that same data is resent.

When you upload, the roles are reversed and your router has all the power. QoS is great for things like cloud based backups. You can comfortably let your backups use all of your bandwidth, without using the any throttling settings on the client, and have full confidence that your router will always choose your other traffic over the backup whenever it has to choose what can't fit in the pipe at a particular time.

Having said all of this, one of the things TCP does is manage the end-to-end session and will throttle down the sender based on how much bandwidth it believes is available. If your router is routinely trashing a high percentage of a given session, the sender will figure that out and send less, which effectually gives you what you want (after a delay). The only problem is that traditional QoS was not designed to do that. It is designed around the idea of prioritizing, not limiting, and like I said, it is impossible to force your ISP's router to change the way it shapes traffic.

Asus includes some different QoS engines meant to do exactly what you want, but I am not sure if your model router supports them. I had that same router up until about a year ago and I don't believe it did (unless it has been added by newer firmware). On my newer AC87R I can choose between the traditional QoS engine you are using (which a LOT of people have complained is not working as expected on the newer firmware), or Adaptive QoS (basically QoS for dummies), or Bandwidth Limiter, which allows you to put a limit on the bandwidth of a specific client (but not a specific type of session).

In theory what you are trying to do should work (assuming your rules are correct), but in practice, results will very a lot...to the point it of not working.