Re: home network monitoring and shaping

[Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com>]

On 02/12/2013 04:46 PM, Joel Maslak wrote:
> Large buffers have broken the average home internet.  I can't tell you how
> many people are astonished when I say "one of your family members
> downloading a huge Microsoft ISO image (via TCP or other congestion-aware
> algorithm) shouldn't even be noticed by another family member doing web
> browsing.  If it is noticed, the network is broke.  Even if it's at the end
> of a slow DSL line."

This is true only to a point: if you have 5 people streaming movies
on a 2 people broadband you're going to have problems regardless of
the queuing discipline. That said, it's pretty awful that in this day and
age that router vendors can't be bothered to set the default linux kernel
queuing  parameters to something reasonable.

In any case, my point was really about wanting to deal with what happens
when your isp bandwidth is saturated and being able to track it down and/or
kill off the offenders. I haven't bought a router in the last year or two as
"apps" have become de rigueur, but it sure seems like it would be nice to
be able to do that. I'm pretty sure that I still can't (= being a dumb consumer,
not a net geek jockey), but would like to hear otherwise.

Mike