Traffic Control HOWTO

Version 1.0.2

Martin A. Brown

"Oct 2006"

Revision History
Revision 1.0.22006-10-28Revised by: MAB
Add references to HFSC, alter author email addresses
Revision 1.0.12003-11-17Revised by: MAB
Added link to Leonardo Balliache's documentation
Revision 1.02003-09-24Revised by: MAB
reviewed and approved by TLDP
Revision 0.72003-09-14Revised by: MAB
incremental revisions, proofreading, ready for TLDP
Revision 0.62003-09-09Revised by: MAB
minor editing, corrections from Stef Coene
Revision 0.52003-09-01Revised by: MAB
HTB section mostly complete, more diagrams, LARTC pre-release
Revision 0.42003-08-30Revised by: MAB
added diagram
Revision 0.32003-08-29Revised by: MAB
substantial completion of classless, software, rules, elements and components sections
Revision 0.22003-08-23Revised by: MAB
major work on overview, elements, components and software sections
Revision 0.12003-08-15Revised 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.

Legal Notice
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. HFSC, Hierarchical Fair Service Curve
7.3. PRIO, priority scheduler
7.4. 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