Re: [gentoo-server] How to manage bandwidth for outgoing mails

On 01/10/2007, Hex Star <hexstar@gmail.com> wrote:
> throttled (when compiled from source on linux) can take care of this:
> http://www.intrarts.com/throttledcli.html
>

A very nice find. But Linux support was removed in July 2005, according to its README.txt to "clean up the codebase". I find myself not in the least surprised.

My opinion - for what it's worth - is that, great though Linux is, the packet filtering and shaping/queuing implementation(s) in the various *BSD distributions are so well implemented, easy to understand and properly documented that I would not even consider using Linux for this sort of thing. It really is the one aspect of using Linux that I found singularly unpleasant.

For example, take a look at
http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/queueing.html then try to figure out how to implement the same policies described in Linux with the guidance of the increasingly creaky LARTC guide - it really is an exercise in pure, undiluted pain. Even figuring out how to prioritise outgoing TCP packets with the ACK flag set - a really important process for betting the best out of an asymmetric connection - is non-trivial in Linux. The Wonder Shaper script has not been updated since 2002 and is symptomatic of the problem ... that netfilter/iptables/iproute/QoS are so complex in Linux that bespoke wrapper scripts that yield unpredictable results are a dozen a dime, as the saying goes.

Personally, I would be looking at using OpenBSD/pf or pfSense, a good "firewall distro" with a friendly web interface that's based on FreeBSD and its port of pf (and, like OpenBSD, ALTQ). It also features a traffic shaping wizard which is useful for defining a good set of default rules for further tweaking.

Just my 2 pence, anyway.

Regards,

--Kerin

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