Network Capping...

[Areku]

Ok so next year i will be moving in with some friends. Internet is going to be a must so going to network all the pc's in the joint. So the problem is i know that they will be downloading whatever they can from wherever they may find it. So what im looking for is a way to evenly cap the connection for each pc. Is there such a tool which will help me to do this?

Thanks if anyone has an answer.

[Splash]

I'd look into various proxying apps...

[Merlin4458]

Im guessing ur going to want to be gaming and not want a high ping. Im im the same boat m8 and am yet to find any hardware that will dish out certain bandwidth to each pc without it still effecting

[cm_uk]

what connection you going for?

[herbert_goon]

I don't think you can cap each PC - you would need to write your own code for that i think, and you would need to determine what is traffic destined for the web which is going to be very tricky!

Closest thing I can think of is enabling QoS, which wont enforce any cpas on "isp bandwidth" but will reserve bandwith on your lan

HTH

[Atomic]

www.netlimiter.com

sorted.

[Moby-Dick]

or try one of these as a gateway machine.

http://www.m0n0.ch/wall/

[Vimeous]

If you've got any cash handy then a buy a Draytek 2600 series router. Yes they are expensive (at least £125incVAT for the 2600 Plus) but offer individual port bandwidth capping.
Oh and a decent firewall, ADSL modem, 4-port switch, USB print server, proper VPN connection (not just pass-through) and options on VoIP and wireless.

I will be investigating Moby's link as well however, it looks v interesting

[Moby-Dick]

wo0h0o another Draytek convert

they are very nice bits of kit for home and small business use.

I think there is a notable difference between traffic limiting and bandwidth shaping - I'll see if I can get a better explanation out of the network guy in my office , but I think that bandwidth /traffic shaping optimises the network flow so that if you have serveral objects using the bandwidth, the flow is adjusted so that best performance is achieved/ bandwidth is split up "fairly"

[Areku]

www.netlimiter.com

sorted.

I use netlimiter. It doesnt allow you to control the amount of data on a network, only on the machine its installed on.

Thanks for the link moby. I have read some of the documentation, it seems interesting, but i think i need to read a bit more before i completely get my head around it.

If anyone else has any idea's/solutions they would be greatly appreciated.

[Twigman]

they are very nice bits of kit for home

Im going to have to disagree with you there. Nice, but unecessary. Not worth the money for 95%+ of home users I dont think. How often is the standard home user going to use all those features you are paying more for? Hardly ever. Why not get a £50 job that will do fine for the vast majority of people. I dont think they could justify the cost.

For small business I would probably agree though. It's pretty good.

[Moby-Dick]

depends - I think they woudl be worth the investment if you were looking at the VOIP functionality , built in print server and uPnP features.

it is overkill for many people but they do have a market for things like home based workers ( IPsec VPN endpoint for example )

[javalord]

Here's what I did - sod the draytek when you can use open source goodness + MIPS processing power.

1x Linksys WRT54G router, £43.
1x Freeman firmware that supports QoS, £0.

Installed the GPL firmware onto the unit. Used the QoS filtering to drop priority on some data and give highest priority on others.

Works very well. 7 NNTP connections consume 2.1 of 4mbit whilst I stream some video via http. MSN udp messages fly through. My PPTP packets are forwarded without an issue. Can be done on per MAC address or ethernet port basis too.

Wireless is now active with TKIP and AES, along with a huge key. That'll take some time to break, and even if they could, it'll change before they do so. It can also block whatever protocols or keywords your looking for.

It even has a working DNS update client that works with ZoneEdit.

And it has the usual set of features like upnp etc.

So why spend £125+ ?

Edit : If gaming, tell the router only 90% of the line's capability, to ensure latency is smooth.

Also, lots of other firmwares to turn it into a SIP gateway, VPN endpoint etc.