I have two groups; DHCP reservations, and everyone else. I’ve set group bandwidth reservations to 85% DHCP reservations. Not only can i see in the client list the non-DCHP devices are getting a lot of bandwidth, but running an internet performance test on a DCHP client gets almost no bandwidth.
Does anyone out there think the bandwidth reservations work?
Roger
Group Bandwith is normally set per user group. I’ve set the ‘user group’ to a subnet/vlan successfully and it worked fine for me on Balance 310, 30 Pro and HD2 LTEA. Each group had it’s own VLAN set.
OK. I setup the user group to be a network, not the DHCP reservation clients. and this appears work much better.
I’d say this is a defect. but thanks for the tip - I can work with this.
Balance One.
Roger
I have played around with the bandwidth reservations and limits in the past and have found that they work fairly well.
If you are wanting to limit non-dhcp devices to a slower speed, you might want to try the limit feature (instead of reservation). Reservations are only enforced when a WAN is fully utilized.
Assuming a 100 Mbps connection and two devices (one DHCP, the other non-DHCP). Non-DHCP tries a download. The router sees no congestion, so the download runs at full speed 100 Mbps. Second client (DHCP client) then starts the same download, but the link is congested; so it slows the non-DHCP client down to 15 Mbps and the DHCP client gets 85 Mbps. Now, lets say the downloads are from different sources and the DHCP client can only get up to 45 Mbps, the router will allow the non-DHCP client the other 55 Mbps. Basically the router wants to allow full utilization of the link and allow every client the maximum available. It can be hard to tell that it is doing anything most of the time because of this.
If you want to absolutely stop non-DHCP clients from ever getting above 15 Mbps, you should try the bandwidth limit option. This limit is per-device in the group. So, if you have more than one non-DHCP client (e.g. 3 devices) – the non-DHCP group could potentially consume up to 45 Mbps (15 Mbps X 3 devices).
You can use both options at the same time for the “best of all worlds” type of solution. I hope this was helpful as it took me a while to figure out.
Thank you for the lengthy explanation. That matches my understanding of how this should work.
I prefer the reservations, this is somewhat unique to Peplink, and I believe a superior method. Because even the lower priority devices can get full bandwidth if high priory devices do not need the bandwidth.
In my case, I had a non-DHCP client consuming most of the bandwidth. as a test, I started the Internet speed test on a DHCP client, the test showed about 2Mbs download rate. according to my DCHP client reservations, I should get 85% of the bandwidth. Clearly i was not.
I think the issue is either overestimating the capability of the ISP server, or the ISP is not delivering its stated service level. The reservations percentage is based on the values you give in the upload and download performance setting. for example, if I claim the ISP can download at 100Mbs and i reserve 85% (85Mbs) for DHCP client. as long as the non-DHCP client is consuming less than 15Mbs, no throttling will occur(?). but if the ISP can only, in actuality, support only 25Mbs download. the DHCP client will only receive 10Mbs(?) (this is my guess)
however, this explanation does not explain what I measured. Thus, I don’t think it works (at least for DHCP groups)
I have since changed it to groups by network (not DHCP). but I have not had the opportunity to repeat the test.
again, thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Balance One with 8.0.2 firmware.