Quality of Service QoS
Intro
Quality of Service, which depending on the router can be called packet
scheduling, traffic prioritization, game fuel, etc doesn't slow traffic
like many seem to think, it just prioritizes it so the competing packets
are handled in order of importance; if your least important application is
the only one using your internet connection, it will run at full speed.
When implemented correctly, you can have everything that uses your
internet connection going at the same time and everything will feel fast.
LAN-only traffic (not going out to or coming in from the internet) is not
subject to QoS at all.
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Preparation
Setting up QoS requires knowledge of a few things; the Download & Upload
speeds you get from your provider, the applications that should have QoS
rules (most of them!), and finally what port(s) they use, including
whether TCP, UDP, or both. You will be assigning each to a category of
priority, from most important to least - i.e. Exempt from QoS (no delay at
all), Highest, High, Medium (sometimes called "Standard"), Low, & Lowest.
Some routers may have less categories than that, e.g. Exempt, High,
Medium, Low. Read this entirely before making any decisions!
First, set your overall speeds, leaving a tiny bit of elbow room. E.g. I
have 25 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up, so I've entered 23896 Kbps / 9096 Kbps to
allow a little less than 1M in each direction that is completely free from
packet scheduling (aka QoS). This is very important for a few reasons,
mainly to give any exempt protocols some bandwidth they can always work
with even if all other traffic is very busy.
Next, take a quick inventory of the protocols you'd like to create rules
for. These usually include FaceTime and/or Skype, VoIP, browsing & secure
browsing, any games you play, and whatever download protocol(s) you like
to use, but the more the merrier. Figure out and take note of what port(s)
they use.
For my examples, I use VoIP on 5090/UDP, browsing on 80/TCP & 443/TCP,
SSH/SFTP on 22/TCP, Torrents on 6881/TCP, Usenet on 563/TCP, DNS on
53/UDP, NTP on 123/UDP, and Playstation on 3478-3479/UDP, 3658/UDP, and
5223/TCP.
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Implementing Your Rule
You are now ready to prioritize your protocols, but note there are a
couple of tips you should know that can make a big difference.
Most undefined protocols will end up in the Medium (aka Standard)
category; or Low, depending on the router. Also, note that a lot of video
streaming (including YouTube and Netflix) uses port 80 and so will get
lumped in with wherever you set Browsing (typically Medium). I prefer to
leave Browsing in Medium and pretty much define all other protocols as
more or less important than browsing.
NTP isn't used very often (maybe once or twice a day per device to set the
time), uses so little bandwidth, and it needs to be fast for accuracy...
so set it to Exempt.
DNS is also lightweight, and is used by EVERYTHING to take a URL and
resolve it into an IP address; setting it to Exempt can make a significant
impact on the perceived speed of most online traffic (in reality it will
simply allow a lot of things to start their connections sooner, not
actually speed them up - but it makes a big difference in how fast it
"feels" particularly when browsing)
VoIP (any protocol) should be set to the Highest category available. This
is another fairly lightweight one traffic-wise, but too much other traffic
ahead of it will cause either robot-sounding voices, delays, or outright
disconnects.
Generally speaking, most gaming traffic should be considered higher
priority than browsing (especially because a prolonged "browse" like video
streaming could otherwise kill a game connection) but probably not higher
than VoIP. Most games don't need a lot of bandwidth, but the little they
do use should get to and from their servers as quick as possible.
Playstation, Xbox, but also any ports for PC games should be placed in the
High category.
Any and all downloading should land in the lowest category. My Asus
RT-AC66U router allows you to define downloads in even greater detail than
many other routers, so I was able to put web browser downloads (any
traffic on port 80 with more than 512 bytes I think it is) in Low, and
then SFTP to/from my server, torrents and usenet downloads all in Lowest.
This way, anything someone downloads with their browser comes in a little
faster than my server's incessant unattended downloading. Similar to the
note on DNS above, this was all about the user experience when I planned
it. If your router only has High, Medium, and Low but does allow you to
define browser downloads separately from regular browsing, it might be
better to leave it at the same level as browsing (and not the Low level
with torrents etc) so pictures or videos on a site aren't too slow to
load. In my case it works because only downloads are in Lowest and I had
nothing else for Low.
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That's it! It's easy once you know how it works. As always hit me up if
you get stuck or have any questions. It's nice not having to ask the wife
to stop watching videos so I can game ;)
-Static