I share a cable Internet connection (1.5m dl / 256k ul) with my housemate here. Our network setup here at home consists of 2 workstations (his runs Windows 98SE for now, and mine is Debian), a Celeron-300 Linux box, various project systems, and an 8-Port 10/100 hub (which will eventually be replaced with a switch). Our ISP provides 2 dynamically assigned IP addresses. My workstation is connected directly to the Ethernet port on the cable modem, and the Celeron box is connected to the modem's USB port, and serves as a router and firewall (via ipmasq) for all the other systems on the network.
Lately, I mostly use the Internet for general Web browsing, with some occasional large downloads. The other guy is a big time gamer, and is playing City of Heroes (which I may start playing myself later this year, since there is apparently a Linux port for it now). But anyway, He has been experiencing massive bursts of lag lately. We initially thought that there might be a problem with our ISP or some router or whatever between here and the COH servers. Well, about an hour ago, we discovered where the real issue was. I had started a very large (approximately 1GB) BitTorrent download. When I saw how long it was going to take to complete, I cancelled it. That was when I heard the scream of anguish coming from the back bedroom. My housemate had just experienced the worst lag ever known since we got our cable service. Just as a test, I went ahead and started the download again, and sure enough, his lag meter practically went off the scale, so to speak.
Now back when we were on dialup and shared a 56K connection through a Freesco router (freesco.org for more info), I had seen mention occasionally of something called bandwidth throttling or traffic shaping, but I never got around to tinkering with it back then.
Essentially, what I am wanting to do is split our available bandwidth (1.5/256) evenly, so that the router gets a dedicated 768/128 and my workstation gets its own 768/128, with the ability for either to use more when the other is idle. Since both are connected directly to the modem, I am assuming that I will need to set this up on both systems of course.
Normally, I would go ahead and hammer away at this project myself until I got it figured out, but I just don't have the time this time around to spend hours or even days sifting through cryptic pages that seem to assume that the target audience already knows how to do what the page is teaching. So, can someone give some tips, or at least direct me to a page that has a simple tutorial on how to set up something like this without causing my head to explode?
Thanks, and here's hoping Comcast will finally expand to my part of Kitsap County and assimilate Wave Broadband. :D
-- Scarletdown
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