Traffic Control HOWTO

Version 1.0.1

Martin A. Brown

SecurePipe, Inc.
Network Administration

<mabrown@securepipe.com>

"Nov 2003"

Revision History
Revision 1.0.1	2003-11-17	Revised by: MAB
Added link to Leonardo Balliache's documentation
Revision 1.0	2003-09-24	Revised by: MAB
reviewed and approved by TLDP
Revision 0.7	2003-09-14	Revised by: MAB
incremental revisions, proofreading, ready for TLDP
Revision 0.6	2003-09-09	Revised by: MAB
minor editing, corrections from Stef Coene
Revision 0.5	2003-09-01	Revised by: MAB
HTB section mostly complete, more diagrams, LARTC pre-release
Revision 0.4	2003-08-30	Revised by: MAB
added diagram
Revision 0.3	2003-08-29	Revised by: MAB
substantial completion of classless, software, rules, elements and components sections
Revision 0.2	2003-08-23	Revised by: MAB
major work on overview, elements, components and software sections
Revision 0.1	2003-08-15	Revised by: MAB
initial revision (outline complete)

Traffic control encompasses the sets of mechanisms and operations by which packets are queued for transmission/reception on a network interface. The operations include enqueuing, policing, classifying, scheduling, shaping and dropping. This HOWTO provides an introduction and overview of the capabilities and implementation of traffic control under Linux.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Linux Traffic Control

1.1. Target audience and assumptions about the reader
1.2. Conventions
1.3. Recommended approach
1.4. Missing content, corrections and feedback

2. Overview of Concepts

2.1. What is it?
2.2. Why use it?
2.3. Advantages
2.4. Disdvantages
2.5. Queues
2.6. Flows
2.7. Tokens and buckets
2.8. Packets and frames

3. Traditional Elements of Traffic Control

3.1. Shaping
3.2. Scheduling
3.3. Classifying
3.4. Policing
3.5. Dropping
3.6. Marking

4. Components of Linux Traffic Control

4.1. qdisc
4.2. class
4.3. filter
4.4. classifier
4.5. policer
4.6. drop
4.7. handle

5. Software and Tools

5.1. Kernel requirements
5.2. iproute2 tools (tc)
5.3. tcng, Traffic Control Next Generation
5.4. IMQ, Intermediate Queuing device

6. Classless Queuing Disciplines (qdiscs)

6.1. FIFO, First-In First-Out (pfifo and bfifo)
6.2. pfifo_fast, the default Linux qdisc
6.3. SFQ, Stochastic Fair Queuing
6.4. ESFQ, Extended Stochastic Fair Queuing
6.5. GRED, Generic Random Early Drop
6.6. TBF, Token Bucket Filter

7. Classful Queuing Disciplines (qdiscs)

7.1. HTB, Hierarchical Token Bucket
7.2. PRIO, priority scheduler
7.3. CBQ, Class Based Queuing

8. Rules, Guidelines and Approaches

8.1. General Rules of Linux Traffic Control
8.2. Handling a link with a known bandwidth
8.3. Handling a link with a variable (or unknown) bandwidth
8.4. Sharing/splitting bandwidth based on flows
8.5. Sharing/splitting bandwidth based on IP

9. Scripts for use with QoS/Traffic Control

9.1. wondershaper
9.2. ADSL Bandwidth HOWTO script (myshaper)
9.3. htb.init
9.4. tcng.init
9.5. cbq.init

10. Diagram

10.1. General diagram

11. Annotated Traffic Control Links

		Next
		Introduction to Linux Traffic Control

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