Does Tomato allow real-time prioritisation of internet traffic over P2P?

Participant · 29 Jan 2011 at 22:42

Hi all

Imagine someone in my house is downloading a Torrent file in uTorrent or similar.
Now imagine someone else wants to browse the internet.

Is it possible to prioritise the internet traffic over the P2P traffic immediately, so that the browsing is not slowed down noticeably? I have a slight problem with having to run upstairs and disable uTorrent downloads whenever I want to browse the internet downstairs.

I have a Linksys WRT54GL and am wondering if it's worth me installing the Tomato firmware.

Many thanks.

thepeganator · 29 Jan 2011 at 22:45

Could limit upload rate on the torrents, I find limiting it to say 70% of your bandwidth does wonders...

dbmzk1 · 29 Jan 2011 at 22:45

Yes, it allows you to setup QoS which does just that.

It also improves the performance of the router so you should install it anyway.

xiphrex · 29 Jan 2011 at 22:51

Definitely get a custom firmware with that router. I have the same one and Im running tomato, very very stable, nice range of options, and has QoS which is what you need. Easy to setup and there are some guides on the net for it. Also allows you to boost the wireless power by a great amount which does wonders for the range.

I havent tried DD-WRT (as an alternative to tomato). Some say its better but Ive also heard some stability problems. Tomato is doing the job very nicely for me so I havent been tempted to try alternative firmwares.

This router with tomato is so good in fact that I was hoping they would release a wireless-N version of this exact same router but alas thats not the case, which is a shame.

JonJ678 · 29 Jan 2011 at 23:06

Prioritise http port 80 over everything else. Probably don't need to update the firmware to do so.

JonnyT · 30 Jan 2011 at 11:45

It's definitely possible as it's what prompted me to install Tomato on my WRT54GS in the first place! I had a (now ex-) housemate who seemingly wanted to download the whole internet via BitTorrent so the QoS function came in VERY handy

You'll need to prioritise ports 80 and 443 (http & https) and also 53 (for DNS) otherwise the DNS lookups for websites are going to be affected too. There are advanced classifications available for BitTorrent, eMule and other P2P services built in, so all you'd need to do is put the web traffic in a high-priority group, the BitTorrent in the lowest priority group and then set the speed thresholds for the groups.

Participant · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:03

Cheers guys.

Participant · 30 Jan 2011 at 18:40

Got Tomato onto my WRT54GL (v1.1). It gave me a 'failed' message, which had me flapping, but a reset of the router and I was presented with the Tomato GUI when I navigated to 192.168.1.1.

Have now set up WPA2 (PSK) with AES, port forwarding, and QoS. With QoS, most of the settings people mention above were already there (DNS, WWW, and the appropriate ports), so all I had to do was add P2P protocols as lowest priority and all was sorted.

I now have

- A rock solid wireless connection with a very strong signal.
- Fast internet even when P2Ping (the QoS seems perfect so far, finally sorted the problem with the internet grinding to a halt when torrents were running).
- The desire to faff around with all the other settings.

Finally I can leave Torrents going 24/7 and not have to worry about annoying everyone else. Not sure how iPlayer and other P2P traffic is affected by this though?

Kol · 30 Jan 2011 at 18:45

As said above, though I imagine you have ensured it's already the case, limit your upload speed. Mine is set at 475KB/s as my upload is around 650KB/s which means the outward packets are choked by uploading of torrents.

It's the most common reason for unresponsive web browsing.

ecksmen · 30 Jan 2011 at 19:04

JonJ678 said:
Prioritise http port 80 over everything else. Probably don't need to update the firmware to do so.

Do not do this, before requesting a web page, you'll need to do a DNS lookup to retrieve the IP address, then the http connection will take place.

if the web is most imporant to you, the QoS should look something like this.

Priority 50 - http/https/DNS - source (desktop/laptop ip list / range)
Priority 100 - All protocols - Source (Download box IP)

Normal QoS rating is 1 to 255 with 255 being worse. Best not to use the extremes (in my example) 1 or 255. Remember these are usually weighted ruling meaning if you only have 10 rules, with the highest priority set to 50 it will get treated first, it doesn't need to have a priority of 1 to be treated first.

Why not go to P1? You may at a later date introduce a rule with increased priority, meaning you don't need to change all the rules for a small addition of an games console.

Priority 45 - all traffic - source Xbox (ip address)
Priority 50 - http/https/DNS - source (desktop/laptop ip list / range)
Priority 100 - All protocols - Source (Download box IP)

The xbox will now be in front, then web for the desktops and the downloadbox last. You can then add further rules without in between.

AceTK · 30 Jan 2011 at 19:20

Robbie G said:
Hi all

Imagine someone in my house is downloading a Torrent file in uTorrent or similar.
Now imagine someone else wants to browse the internet.

Is it possible to prioritise the internet traffic over the P2P traffic immediately, so that the browsing is not slowed down noticeably? I have a slight problem with having to run upstairs and disable uTorrent downloads whenever I want to browse the internet downstairs.

I have a Linksys WRT54GL and am wondering if it's worth me installing the Tomato firmware.

Many thanks.

Theoretically it should work. Im suprised the mods have not stopped this thread. Not that I mind its just when I even used the word beggining with t and ending in t to describe p2p a certain mod starting with m and ending with y gave me a strike. But then that same mod gave me a strike for my signature being wrong when it was fine so it could have been just singling me out as Ive seen tons of other people with massive signatures that have not been bothered. Ah well just thought id let you know you might wanna delete this thread incase they victimise you too.

KIA · 30 Jan 2011 at 19:59

AceTK said:
Theoretically it should work. Im suprised the mods have not stopped this thread. Not that I mind its just when I even used the word beggining with t and ending in t to describe p2p a certain mod starting with m and ending with y gave me a strike. But then that same mod gave me a strike for my signature being wrong when it was fine so it could have been just singling me out as Ive seen tons of other people with massive signatures that have not been bothered. Ah well just thought id let you know you might wanna delete this thread incase they victimise you too.

Not going to help ranting in someone else's threaded.

Participant · 30 Jan 2011 at 21:35

Kol said:
As said above, though I imagine you have ensured it's already the case, limit your upload speed. Mine is set at 475KB/s as my upload is around 650KB/s which means the outward packets are choked by uploading of torrents.

It's the most common reason for unresponsive web browsing.

No need to limit uploads if I have a router with decent QoS...surely?

ecksmen said:
Do not do this, before requesting a web page, you'll need to do a DNS lookup to retrieve the IP address, then the http connection will take place.

if the web is most imporant to you, the QoS should look something like this.

Priority 50 - http/https/DNS - source (desktop/laptop ip list / range)
Priority 100 - All protocols - Source (Download box IP)

Normal QoS rating is 1 to 255 with 255 being worse. Best not to use the extremes (in my example) 1 or 255. Remember these are usually weighted ruling meaning if you only have 10 rules, with the highest priority set to 50 it will get treated first, it doesn't need to have a priority of 1 to be treated first.

Why not go to P1? You may at a later date introduce a rule with increased priority, meaning you don't need to change all the rules for a small addition of an games console.

Priority 45 - all traffic - source Xbox (ip address)
Priority 50 - http/https/DNS - source (desktop/laptop ip list / range)
Priority 100 - All protocols - Source (Download box IP)

The xbox will now be in front, then web for the desktops and the downloadbox last. You can then add further rules without in between.

Thanks. Most of that was over my head, so I'll research what you've said at work tomorrow

.

So far my downloads have only been going @ 250kbps so I don't know if I've ballsed something up...

In response to AceTK, I am not using torrenting for anything illegal. This is shareware software and blu-ray samples. However it's strange that you seem to be accusing me of illegal activities yet making out you're concerned for me at the same time. I suspect your main motive is a gripe against the mods, so as per fluff's comment, take it elsewhere if you don't mind

.

Kol · 30 Jan 2011 at 21:56

Robbie G said:
No need to limit uploads if I have a router with decent QoS...surely?

Yep, even with QoS. If the upload is choked (even when not browsing) even your torrent speed will suffer as it can't report back to the source informing it's ready for the next piece. Depends entirely on how good your connection is, but if your upload is completely saturated it can sometimes cause issue with download speed.