Traffic Shaping

Hi all,

Days go by and i continue experimenting around with m0n0wall. Since i have now succeede in correctly shaping VoIP and eMule uploads i now try to tame eMule downloads.

The magic shaper creates a rule for eMule (actually eDonkey) using the default port range 4662-4272..... However, having a look at eMule's stats panel will show you that most people do not use this port range. Thus a rule trying to shape the downloads in this range will have no effect.

To understand this let's take an example :
You want to download your favorite Linux distro over eMule (remember do not download illegal stuff  ). eMule find some sources for it at some remote users. This users have changed their default configuration so that their uploads happen on port 7890. Your eMule will connect to this port to download the file. On your side eMule will use a random port in all the available range.
As you can see from this example, this connection will completely be ignored by the rule and will be handled by the catch all rule.
Since you do not have a clue which port will be used on your side it is almost impossible to set up a matching rule....

One fix to this would be to have the ability to restrict eMule to a specified port range for downloads or have it running on a dedicated machine..... Do not let me be missunderstood, the problem here we are dealing with is eMule not m0n0 !

I tried the MagicShaper and wasn't all that happy for similar problems with Skype...i took the approach of shaping everything i care about, and then using a catch all rule for the stuff that's pretty unshapable....so i ended up shaping port 80 traffic for http, 443 for https, etc, then anything that doesn't fit that, ends up in a little queue by itself...not the most elegant setup, but it seems to have worked pretty well.  It is dependent on not having too much hitting that catchall.

I think this is the way it is going to take for me too.... Except that FTP sucks.... When uploading/dowloading to/from an FTP server a second connection is established i.e.: the file does not get transfered on port 21.....
Do you know if there is an FTP client out there that you can restrict to use a specified port range for downloads/uploads ?
I have set up a rule to match my favourite FTP host, but for sure at one time i'll be dowloading something from an other FTP server... ....

I'm just dreaming of an application level based QoS 

As soon as i have the chance to get my hands on a small PC that i can dedicate to P2P i'll do it. Thus i will put this PC into a low queue !

I've done some looking before, and there are two flavors of ftp, Active and Passive, but both seem to use a random high port along with 21, the difference seems to be which side instigates the random high port connection....i've done some playing and it seems like there's no way to work FTP on just port 21.

Also, as far as a cheap dedicated machine, you might want to check out ITX machines, mini-box.com has been good for me in the past, if you shop around you can get a light-ish machine to dedicate to something for around 200 bucks.  Another option is the Ars Technica or HardOCP forums, both have alot of nerds buying/selling/trading old tech stuff.  I've found breaking things off to dedicated machines was a great way to remove load all over the place, and it's worked out well now that it's shaping time.  Azureus is a great torrent client for that, you can set up a webgui to manage it, so you never even touch the machine...

An ITX machine would be ideal  . Your site is not bad, but i'm from france shipping would cost far to much.... However a frind of mine just want me to help him build a new PC and he wants to give me his old PIII for free !

I hav enever used torrents, maybe i shoudl try one day.

Back to the topic, this afternoon i was listening to a shoutcast. As i started eMule i begun to get gaps and Winamp kept buffering and rbuffering.... i ended up added a download rule for port 5000 which is the one used by this specific shoutcast stream.... My trafic shaper rules are starting to look very crippled.....