I received my Peplink Balance One today and for a US$ 500 router I was expecting a little more from QoS.
For instance, only 3 levels of priority is too low. I’d like to have more levels. For example: Highest priority for games and VoIP, high priority for streaming, normal priority for most applications and low priority for P2P.
Also, I understand that port-based QoS refers to destination port. For example: TCP 80 as destination is probably HTTP traffic. But for games, it would be nice to adjust QoS based on the local port as well. For example, Fifa 17 on my PS4 uses UDP ports 3659 and 9308. If I put these ports on the rules, I assume it will only work if the other part is also using these ports, which may not be the case.
Finally, it would be nice to have more and newer Level 7 QoS. Asus uses an engine by Trend Micro which is pretty good at detecting Netflix, Youtube, games, etc.
+1 for this, QOS is very lacking and needs finer control.
I’d like to be able to set priority and limits by IP as well for servers. We have a few servers for web, backups, and vpns, and the 3 groups currently available are not enough. I need to be able to limit bandwidth for the backup server individually so it doesn’t eat up all my upload. Currently, I need to use one of the 3 preset groups which limits my ability to manage the other devices.
Thanks
Does anyone know what the actual QOS settings even do? My assumptions are that there is a single buffer for uploads and downloads, how would it do any prioritization? Either it is marking a TCP or UDP header OR it is querying the buffer. My point is that I don’t think it does any kind of queueing at all. I have a feeling they are identifying traffic more for their reporting features and less for actual quality of service with regards to our traffic.
what do you mean by “Group”? Is that the application group? or user group?
I have been struggling to get good UDP performance for my Xbox for the past year. I had the UDP port range specified as the ONLY high priority traffic and I would often suffer from horrible lag spikes. If I diverted all traffic away from the Balance running the WAN connection, I wouldn’t see these spikes during the game play. If I hooked the Xbox up directly to the WAN (bypassing all routers) - I have no issues with lag spikes. If I reset the Balance and the WAN connection, it will run fine for a day or so, but then go back to being choppy.
I recently replaced one of my Balance routers with a NetDuma, and it is able to sustain gameplay while other traffic flows through. It’s primary value is it’s SQM/QOS, so it isn’t really a fair comparison. The Balance series is a much more useful router, but it struggles with UDP based game play. There have been countless requests to implement some sort of queue management, and I have seen very little progress towards it.
I mean the user group (Manager, Staff and Guest). Firstly, please ensure you configure the accurate upload and download bandwidth on the WAN interfaces. Qos will be based on those figures you configured on the WAN interfaces.
If you have active users in each group, each group will have its own queue with bandwidth and traffic priority.
That may be why the qos struggles. My connections are both non-cir and are considered “best effort” in an over subscription model. I have tried to set the limits to what I realistically can get, but then I was never able to achieve full utilization of neither link. Any plans to implement a fluctuating bandwidth capacity? Perhaps some machine learning to establish “peak hour” slowdown rates?
Xbox bandwith is pretty minimal other than downloading games and updates. During gameplay, there are UDP data streams that are less than 1 Mbps, but they are constant streams of data.
The WAN link is not congested, however there are tons of unsolicited ARP packets coming from the WAN side. I only run my two m-cells and the Xbox through this WAN link during game time.
I have 7 unique IPs assigned to “Manager”, All of my VLAN networks are set up as “Staff”, and the Everyone group goes into “Guest”. For application settings – “Apply settings to all users” is selected. I have three applications set up - “All supported streaming applications” - low; “All supported VOIP protocols” - high; and then my xbox application (UDP 3074-3076) - high. DSL/Cable optimization is deselected.
For Group bandwidth reservation - M-50%;S-30%,Guest-20%. Individual bandwidth limit is not in use.
@jmjones, Qos (Bandwidth Reservation and Application) only takes effect if the WAN link is congested. I believe your problem is not related to the settings of Qos since the WAN link is healthy. I need your favor to open ticket for further checking and observation.
An herein lies my problem (I think). If QOS only works when the link is saturated, and my links are constantly fluctuating (sometimes I can get 26 Mbps, others I am lucky to get 12 Mbps). I suspect the Peplink says “Heck, plenty of room in the pipe – no need to do any prioritization”
Right now, my network is a mess; but it functions correctly. I am afraid that just the complexity of the connectivity would cause too much confusion. Right now, I have a Balance 30, Balance One, NetDuma, and an Amplifi router to run my LAN and 2 WAN links. For whatever reason, separating everything from each other has given the best results.
Just a reminder, I have two WAN links with the same ISP. I have two different types of modems, one modem translates the default gateway MAC, the other passes it along (a single Peplink managing both will see two different mac addresses for the same default gateway). I also have unsolicited ARP traffic constantly from the ISP. In my opinion, it looks as though the superfluous ARP traffic causes the Peplink to “stall” while it tries to sort through the conflicting ARP records (one WAN thinks the default gateway is here, the other thinks it is there)
I also had my “Fast WAN” connected to WAN1, so there may be some traffic being routed down the pipe even though I have explicitly set ALL traffic to go out the other WAN link.
Again, I have reconfigured my setup so that it works for me. I am eagerly awaiting new firmware releases to see if I can eventually go back to a single router managing both WANS. for now, I have the Balance One managing the LAN. I have the Balance 30 managing a WAN link, I have the NetDuma managing the other WAN link, and now I have the Amplifi managing the Wifi clients. This has proven to be the most reliable, long running, solution.
I am stuck with a wireless provider since I live in the county. There is copper up to about 600 yards away, but the cable company wanted to charge me a fortune to run it to my house. I tried to call their bluff and said yeah sure, when can you start? I haven’t heard back. Needless to say, I spend a considerable amount on high speed internet, and the associated gear. I work out of my home through the internet, so I really don’t have a choice, I have a wireless ISP. I will always have a disadvantage when it comes to gaming. Milliseconds matter. Adding further latency is almost a certain rage fest.
So far, I am impressed with the stability that you gain with a sophisticated gaming centric setup. I was also amazed at how much throughout you lose by managing the traffic in such a way. I have lost about 1/3 of the throughput on that WAN with the gaming settings enabled (proprietary SQM, I am pretty sure). Just a little food for thought, removal of buffer bloat (lag) equals loss in overall throughput. Significant loss. Everything has a trade off.
