Dynamic Traffic Shaping

[LordZ]

Hello to all OpenBSD and pf users. Has anyone done dynamic traffic shaping with pf? Is this possible? Can I see some example configs in order to create my config.

[jggimi]

Do you happen to mean the ability to "borrow" bandwidth, up to some limit, when there is capacity available? If so, this is built-in to class based queuing. Examples of borrow rules are in the PF User's Guide.

If you mean something else, you'll have to formulate your question more completely.

[J65nko]

The pf.conf man page also has an example. Use altq and queue to search this forum, and you will find some examples.

[LordZ]

I have an ADSL connection with 8 Mb/s download and 1 Mb/s upload, and a network with 4 workstations.Sometimes when someone in the network starts downloading something surfing the network is awful. What I want to do is that only 2 people are working simultaneously the bandwidth is shared equally among them no matter what are they doing.

[DutchDaemon]

Traffic shaping only works on the upload bandwidth (with altq). What you want can be done using pipes in ipfw (if that's available in OpenBSD).

[jggimi]

If LordZ's OpenBSD platform is the router, then traffic from the ISP may be shaped as it enters the local network (which would be an outbound direction when leaving the router).

[DutchDaemon]

Still, I believe traffic shaping 'in the opposite direction' has limited usefulness, because you cannot control/shape the traffic all the way back to its origin. You're likely to drop packets, forcing retransmits and basically wasting downstream bandwidth (and the resources of peers sending you traffic).