RV320 - Confused about what bandwidth management can actually achieve?

[Andrew Rankin]

Hello!

Three bandwidth management related questions, if I may...

1. If you add multiple bandwidth rate control rules (e.g. for different subnets or services) why do you get an error if the sum of the max limits exceeds the total WAN rate? That makes no sense to me as the max is a limit not a guarantee.

2. If you set up a rule like:

WAN1 All Traffic [TCP&UDP/1~65535] 192.168.1.1~192.168.1.254 Downstream 2000 8000

Will this provide a guaranteed 2 Mb/s and limit of 8 Mb/s to each IP on in the 192.168.1.0 subnet, or will the guarantee/limit apply to the entire subnet?

3. If the answer to question 2 is "subnet", the is there any way to cap each DHCP LAN client bandwidth without creating a rule for each IP in the range (this is not practicable, due to the issue raised in question 1).

My confusion is also somewhat due to the following statements found in the router's own help content under the "Bandwidth Management" section:

• Rate Control—Minimum (guaranteed) bandwidth and maximum (limited) bandwidth for each service or IP address. You can add up to 100 services.
• Min. Rate—Minimum rate in kbs for the guaranteed bandwidth.
• Max. Rate—Maximum rate in kbs for the guaranteed bandwidth.

​and a statement in a specific KB article on Bandwidth Management Configuration on RV320

• Any traffic that meets the criteria of the bandwidth management is subject to the rate control configured in the bandwidth management.

I assume there is a mistake in the explanation of max. rate. Should it not say "limited bandwidth" instead of "guaranteed bandwidth", to be consistent with the explanation of rate control?

Secondly, in the rate control explanation, it says the min and max apply to "each service or IP address", but then the statement from the KB indicates that any traffic meeting the criteria is subject to rate control. The former indicates that you can guarantee/limit the bandwidth per client (IP address) on the LAN (what I want to do), the latter suggests something different.

I hope someone here can help clarify all this, thanks!

[markt000111]

I recently installed an RV320 in my home office.

I have the same experience as you describe in #1 above.  That is, the 'Max Rate' using 'Rate Control' behaves as a guaranteed rate, rather than a limit.  

This goes counter to my experience with other QOS rate control systems - where the 'Min Rate' is the guarenteed rate, and 'Max Rate' is the limit.  For example, I would expect to be able to configure the following:

—————————————————

Max Bandwidth Provided by ISP

    Interface        Upstream        DownStream

    WAN1           1500                1500

Rate Control Table

    Interface     Service           IP                       Direction          Min. Rate(kbs)        Max. Rate(kbs)

    WAN1        All Traffic        192.168.1.100    Downstream    500                         1500

    WAN1        All Traffic        192.168.1.101    Downstream    1000                       1500

—————————————————

The expected behavior is that either IP host could achieve up to 1500kbs when the link is uncongested. However, if both hosts were competing for the link, the first host (..100) would get 500kbs, and the second (..101) would get 1000kbs.  That is, the sum of the ‘Min. Rate’s (guarenteed rates) cannot exceed the IPS link rate (1500kbs).

The RV320 will not allow this configuration, as the sum of the ‘Max. Rate’s exceeds the IPS link.  The downside to having the ‘Max Rate’ being the guaranteed rate, is bandwidth cannot be shared amount rules in the table (IP hosts) when the link is uncontested.

[Andrew Rankin]

FYI seems to be fixed in firmware 1.3.1.12, see note from changelog:

Bandwidth Management Rules limit sum of Max Rates to ISP Max BW
(CSCut04618)