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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Apple

Partitioning Bandwidth Using Mac OS X? 61

Posted by Cliff from the better-quality-of-service dept.
dasboy has this query: "I was wondering if anyone knew of away to partition bandwidth amongst a group of computers running Mac OS X? I have a [few Macintosh machines] at home all on the same LAN and all on the same Internet connection. One of these machines is used by my daughter when she's home from school. The biggest problems happen when she begins downloading large files (I'll let you guess what she downloads <grin!>). I was wondering if there are any cool BSDish ways of constricting the amount of bandwidth her computer uses?"
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Partitioning Bandwidth Using Mac OS X? More

Partitioning Bandwidth Using Mac OS X?

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  • Eep! (Score:4, Funny)

    by NegativeK ( 547688 ) <tekarien&hotmail,com> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @12:32AM (#5038024) Homepage
    I'll let you guess what she downloads

    I'll leave it up to everyone else with perverted minds to guess what _I_ thought of when I first read that.

    I feel like a bad person now.

    • Re:Eep! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Ponty ( 15710 )
      No, it's clearly illustrated recipes. Everyone knows that that's what God intended the Internet for. And the illustrations are very large. Where's your mind? Now I'm going to go enjoy my weiner that I've been working on all afternoon.
  • It was porn huh?

  • Porn :rolleyes: (Score:4, Funny)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @12:49AM (#5038080) Homepage Journal
    The biggest problems happen when she begins downloading large files (I'll let you guess what she downloads

    4 posts so far, 3 implying she downloads porn. You did ask for it you know :)

    QoS on the router would be the best bet in my uninformed opinion. Other then that a download manager that throttles her bandwidth

  • Wonderful (Score:5, Informative)

    by entrylevel ( 559061 ) <jaundoh@yahoo.com> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @01:01AM (#5038123)
    I haven't tried it yet (1.5Mbps is plenty for all those on my home LAN), but you might want to give Throttled [intrarts.com] a shot. Certainly not the easiest to use (no GUI), but it is open source and cross platform (Linux/BSD/OS X). Basically it runs a server process that you enables bandwidth throttling in your kernel's firewall. The configuration file is simple enough to understand and is quite flexible. You can change also settings while it is running by sending it signals using the not-so-aptly-named 'kill' command in the terminal.

  • try these? (Score:5, Informative)

    by RalfM ( 10406 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @01:08AM (#5038155) Homepage
    CarraFix [wanadoo.fr] might do the trick, or maybe Throttled X [macupdate.com]


    Ralf

  • QoS (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Iron Chef Unix ( 582472 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @01:12AM (#5038167)
    QoS (Quality of Service) settings on your router might be the easiest method. I've never used it, but I know my LinkSys allows you to set priorities (High, Low) for either a specific LAN port, or a particular protocol. Assuming you know what program she is using, say LimeWire, you can also set a specific port (23, etc) to a low priority. I'd be interested to see what effect this has.

  • IPFW (Score:4, Informative)

    by Quicksilver31337 ( 541929 ) <kariudo@gmailWELTY.com minus author> on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @01:18AM (#5038179) Journal
    The simplest way to limit the amoutn of bandwidth she is using would be to throttle it using ipfw, the BSD firewall, you can use it either drop random packets by percentage in order to limit the bw she consumes as well as several other methods.

  • IPFW and Dummynet (Score:5, Informative)

    by Graff ( 532189 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @01:36AM (#5038235)
    You can do this by setting up a firewall in the Terminal. Follow the instructions posted here [sympatico.ca], replacing the contents of the rc.firewall.current file with the following commands:

    #!/bin/sh
    ipfw add 1000 pipe 1 ip from any to any
    ipfw pipe 1 config bw 300Kbit/s queue 50KBytes
    ipfw add allow ip from any to any


    Doing this should limit the connection to 300Kbit/s. If you want the connection faster or slower you simply need to change the 300Kbit/s number. 56Kbit/s should be approximately the speed of a 56K modem. The last number probably should be scaled appropriately to the first number, that is if you cut the first number in half then cut the second in half.

    To learn more about pipes and dummynet, read the manpages for ipfw with the following command in the terminal:
    man ipfw

    • Re:IPFW and Dummynet (Score:3, Informative)

      by davey235 ( 411283 )
      I asked about this a while ago on darwinos-users: dummynet isn't in either darwin or OS X, regardless of what the man pages say. So the 'pipe' commands won't work.

      The response to my question is here [apple.com]

  • Too bad (Score:5, Funny)

    by batobin ( 10158 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @01:38AM (#5038245) Homepage

    **sigh**

    This is the 4th young girl I've heard about this week succumb to the evils of Richard Simmons videos. Which is her favorite? The "Disco Blast Off", or the "Best of Latin Buns Burning"?

    Or is it....no....it couldn't be...."Getting Dirty with the 80s"? Oh, the humanity!

  • She isn't studying that Ellen Feiss ad so she can win the 2003 North American Ellen Feiss Look-a-like bleep bleep bleep bleep Contest? You know the one where after the first round, like, half the contestants lose... which is kinda... a bummer...

    At least the girls (if there are any) in the contest are shaven... Unlike In Soviet Russia....

  • altqd (Score:3, Informative)

    by schmaltz ( 70977 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @03:14AM (#5038515)
    is something I've used under OpenBSD for bandwidth throttling. Don't know if it compiles on OS X.
  • You have so many machines and she is downloading such large files that you actually need QoS on your home lan?? Wow.
    • Well, obviously her excessive downloading of the latest Ricky Martin MP3s is interfering with her Dad's excessive downloading of Girls Gone Wild - Spring Break movies.

  • Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @05:40AM (#5038801)
    ...have you tried talking to her about it? :)

  • Bandwidth Throttling (Score:5, Funny)

    by Patrick Lewis ( 30844 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @08:47AM (#5039314)
    One solution is to say GET OFF THE DAMN COMPUTER!

    Well, that's what my Dad would have done.

    • Yes, my dad would've said the same (but because the 'net as we know it now didn't exist back then this is all hypothetical) and I would've ACKed by grumbled something like "OK Dad" and then completely ignored him. Then he would've proceded to throttle me thereby throttling my bandwidth useage by proxy. I've never been any good at computer usage during a physical altercation. Thereafter he would simply have to issue the GET OFF THE DAMN COMPUTER command, I'd glady ACK and produce his desired result before he even completed his command and the much more difficult direct throttling method would be completely avoided.
      • the 'net as we know it now didn't exist back then this is all hypothetical

        Hardly!. My old VIC-20 had horrible RF shielding, so it borked up the TV reception (no cable!) pretty badly, creating these nasty interference patterns on the TV upstairs. The solution was simple: Whenever my parents wanted to watch TV, I had to turn the computer off.
        • mine was fine, same room, same power socket..

          but it did have the overheating powerpack problem,
          couldnt run the powerpack for more then 2 hours..
          had to chuck it in the freazer for 10 mins..
          oh the fun old days,
          serioulsy though dose anyone make external
          none fan colled powerpacks for computers these
          days??

  • Is there an option in the program to limit how much available bandwith it uses?

  • (I'll let you guess what she downloads <grin!>)

    I assume you mean illegal MP3s. If you encourage your children to steal music and software, please be sure it's a conscious decision. Liability issues aside, you send a very clear message to your kid when you teach them that it's okay to pick and choose which laws they obey.

    • A much better message than teaching them to blindly obey all laws! In the state I'm in, it's illegal for a person of legal drinking age to ferment legally obtained materials for the purpose of drinking. It's also illegal for me to drive down the main street more than three times in a single hour. Sodomy is straight out. If you don't pick and choose what laws to obey, you are begging to be lead by the nose... good for those who like latent dictatorships, not so hot for the rest of us. By all means, encourage your children to download (steal? not worth arguing) music... it's one of the easiest ways you have of making sure they have a backbone.
    • QUESTION AUTHORITY
      • Yes, but when you attach that slogan to silly things like justifying theft, you weaken its legitimate usage.

        Question Authority and Live Responsibly and Respectfully of Others. Encouraging your children to steal for personal convenience seems incompatible with any kind of rational thinking.

  • I have a similar requirement, in that I would like to throttle a connection on a per-server basis (on OpenBSD most likely). i.e. I would like to allow 192.168.1.2 100kb/s and 192.168.1.3 50kb/s. Is this possible? How would it be done?

    - j

    • Re:Performing throttling per server (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Upgrade to OpenBSD 3.2 -current, man pf.

      The altq configuration is now in the pf configuration and works like a dream.

      Please note, this can't control what speed data comes IN to your network, only what speed it leaves. But, with some work you can prevent her traffic from pushing yours out of the way.

      You would need some sort of queueing system on the far end of you DSL/Cable to control how fast stuff comes down to you. I doubt your ISP is going to let you stick an OpenBSD box at their datacenter.
      • > Please note, this can't control what speed data comes IN to your network, only what speed it leaves. But, with some work you can prevent her traffic from pushing yours out of the way.

        Well, ok, but remember that everything that's coming into one interface on your gateway is likely going out another.

        While the gateway itself has to deal with all incoming or outgoing traffic, you can easily set up queing up on the -internal- interface as well as the external and get throtting on the incoming traffic. Sorta.

  • Missing the point? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He said the problem is large file downloads -- i.e., downstream bandwidth. Throttling will limit upstream bandwidth, but there isn't much you can do locally about the amount of data hitting you from external sites...
  • Since I'm not too familiar with OS-X I don't know if this will work, but this is probably close enough to what you are looking for. LINUX Advanced Routing HOW-TO [ibiblio.org] It would be interesting (to me at least) to know if the same tools apply on OS-X.

  • what you really want . . . (Score:4, Informative)

    by superposed ( 308216 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2003 @03:22PM (#5042382)
    . . . is not bandwidth throttling, but rather packet prioritization. It will be unnecessarily restrictive (and not ideal for you either) to give her, e.g., 300 kbps at all times. It would be much better to give yourself all the bandwidth you want at any given moment, and give her whatever's left over. That way she could use the full bandwidth most of the time, but not interfere with your work at all in the rare moments when you need a lot of bandwidth. Unfortunately, this kind of prioritization between traffic from different hosts would have to happen in the router, so it's probably not available on your home network.

  • SSH (Score:1)

    by h'biki ( 638418 )
    Assuming she's running OS X.

    Create a superuser account for yerself on her machine.

    Whenever she's doing illegal things... SSH into her machine and kill the process.

    again.

    and again.

    and again.

    she'll presume the program is so buggy she'll never use it again.

    the RIAA and you win.

    yah! technology.
  • I emailed the person in charge of maintaining the IPFirewall implementation in Darwin pub source and he said he would look into including dummynet support, but after that I never heard back:(

    What I tried to get around the lack of any easy solution was to setup a transparent proxy on the server with Squid, and then use Squid's own bandwidth limiting functions (delay pools-which can allow you to set groups of people based on IP's and subnets). I was doing this at the time with a 56k connection, and it actually worked to the point where my game pings would not cross over 500...lol. I don't recommend it for anything less than DSL, but the difference is noticeable...also, it can be hard to figure out at first, but it is definitely do-able...all this assumes however, that you have a dedicated Mac OS X box running as a gateway router.

    http://www.squid-cache.org/

    http://squid.visolve.com/squid24s1/delaypool.htm

    You could also can have a cron job run on the server during the times you are most likely going to be on, to alter your ipfw config and deny all traffic on the ports your daughter is using to do what she does....but you probably want something more difficult;D

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