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Limiting Network Bandwidth to the Internet

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by levi_l

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I am trying to figure out how I can manage the amount of Internet Bandwidth each user on my network can use.
I know that I can limit the bandwidth of the ports on a switch, but that would also limit the local, LAN bandwidth available to that workstation. I want them to be able to transfer data over the LAN at full speed, I only want to limit their connection speed to the internet.

Any ideas?

9 replies

by older mycroft

Lets assume you have 20 users.

If only 1 of the 20 goes online, that user gets all the available bandwidth. When a 2nd user joins online, each user gets half the bandwidth and so it goes right down to each user having one twentieth of the available bandwidth when they are all online together (unless someone is streaming video which then places the virtual cat among the pigeons).

However, if you impose a one twentieth bandwidth restriction from the outset, when that first user goes online alone [b]NINETEEN TWENTIETHS (95% !!)[/b] of the bandwidth remains unused. That results in the first user taking a helluva lot longer to accomplish their task - when (at full bandwidth availability) they might otherwise have finished their online activity BEFORE the 2nd online user had arrived.

If it's a question of spending 5 minutes online alone @ 100% bandwidth or nearly 2 hours @ 5% bandwidth - I know which one I'd prefer.

[i]But maybe that's just me.[/i]

by jdclyde

and looking for ways to exert their power over their kingdom.

If using Cisco routers, it is a simple matter of QOS, and prioritization.

The problem with going that route, if you don't know EXACTLY what is on the network, you can break something very easily.

It does seem very childish to want to back only certain people down. Possible payback for a slight in the office?

by older mycroft

Not for Conference Rooms and certainly not for Computer Control. ;)

by levi_l

I manage a network of over 400 users. When 20 of them are streaming Youtube videos or watching the news on one of 1000s of news websites, it slows down the entire network. Although it may seem petty to you, it is very detrimental to the other 380 users, because it takes 300% longer to do their job because of 20 jerks. Maybe on your small network is doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you have a large volume of users, there needs to be some policing in place to make sure everyone has a fair chance.

But maybe that's just me.

by cpubymike

Facebook will take a network down pretty quickly to, every page has so many items that are constantly changing I have a 30 meg down connection at home and Facebook runs slow.

by jdclyde

Why is youtube not banned in the company computer use policy?

Does your firewall give reports of most visited sites? Start blocking the non-work related, provided there IS a policy that bans them and you have permission from your boss.

Or, as I said, you can do it all in the cisco routers with QoS.

by cpubymike

I'm fairly new to all the higher end network administration,
but heres what I do know there are open source appliances, i.e. a Linux or BSD distro that you can throw on pretty; well pretty much any computer that hasn't been relegated to the scrap heap by now, and it should run it just fine.
Many will boot and run off a flash card especially in the case of the smaller ones.
Smaller being
Monowall
Smoothwall Express
and Pfsence I believe

There are heavyier versions too that will set up a Samba server as well as other features such as proxy etcetera.
Endian community edition I believe has all the features you might be looking for comes in commercial and free editions. Commercial version getting features such as Kaperski as opposed to Clamav. Endian also has a good proxy filter set up it is itemized by categories and you can just turn on sex, social networking, and other filters; as well as adding and removing exceptions. for other Distros that do not have their proxy in this kind of set up you could download

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Servers/Proxy-Servers/FreeProxy.shtml

it will get you a proxy list in the form of an SQl DB in which case you would either tie in the DB or import it into SQL than search records based on criteria such as violence, or sexual content, than export it as CSV than either manually enter the fields or import using CSV

Update: Endian does have a QoS scheduler

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Security/Endian-Firewall-4976.shtml

by cpubymike

If it isn't in there budget to spend two hours to download an acceptable use policy, and or security policy template from the Internet and rework it to fit the company, I doubt they have the 3 hundred to 3 thousand dollar or more budget on one network appliance.

Just my 2cp;
only two I have to rub together

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