Quality of Service - How does this work?

[BadBoyHouse]

I'm not sure whether the QoS option is something that I need to look at but was wondering how it works exactly.

I've currently got a problem with our office internet connection. We're on 8MB broadband and at lunchtimes - due to the number of users going online (facebook, general web browsing etc - about 30 odd users) it grinds to a halt.

I was wondering if the QoS options within Untangle might help?

My setup goes like this:


Internet
|
ISP 2Wire Router/Firewall
|
Untangle
|
Network Switch
|
Users


Would the QoS options help with the lunchtime issues?

I should add that outside lunchtime the internet is fine and flies along.

[Solignis]

QOS is used for prioritizing traffic.

So for example let say you have 3 types of traffic running on 3 standard ports.

DNS UDP 53
HTTP TCP 80
SSH TCP 22

What QOS allows you to do is specify the priority of the incoming data, also works for outgoing too. For example lets say you need SSH to get into a server but someone is streaming Hulu from with in the building.

What QOS would do is begin to queue packets up at the destination interface, so if you were doing remote access from the internet it would be the WAN interface. It then would apply the set list of priority rules to the incoming or outgoing packets. So if you told Untangle that all SSH traffic is a high priority then QOS would allow an SSH packet before allowing an HTTP packet or any other traffic specified as a lower priority.

The idea of QOS is in its name Quality Of Service. The idea is by giving certain traffic a VIP pass per say you are able maintain the quality of server on time sensitive protocols like VOIP and such.

My example might suck but I hope it helps out.

[acsmashing]

Magnets how do they work?

[dmorris]

QoS (and Bandwidth Control) will help prioritize certain traffic over others.
It won't increase the size of your pipe, but it may help the more important things get better service while the less important things get less.

I'd start here:
http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/New_QoS
and here:
http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/Bandwidth_Control