[Technical] A "real" world problem for consideration

[Adam Barbary]

Hi Kevork,

IPCop http://www.ipcop.org cannot shape individual users in its basic
state. That said there are plenty of addon programs that can modify the
IPCop installation. Try Advanced Proxy http://www.advproxy.net, or check
out the Addon Server pack which automates the install of several handy
tools. On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 14:33:02 +1000, Wong, William C wrote:

Adam
> 
> Hi Kevork,
> 
> What you need is a firewall with bandwidth management capability.  This
> will allow certain traffic to go through or not to through; and traffic
> that should take priority over others.  Something like Squid, IPCOP,
> Smoothwall, or maybe m0n0wall will do such these.
> 
> As for the Download Usage Management, if you are talking about the
> charging users for the internet, you could use Internet Charging
> software, but software like those are not cheap and you need a proxy
> server charge users by time or traffic.  
> 
> In the end, the cost lies on the Proxy Server software (If it is ISA
> Server) and/or Internet Charging Software; plus the hardware require to
> support them.  But since you currently have recycled hardware, that may
> not be a problem.
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tech-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:tech-bounces at edulists.com.au]
> On Behalf Of Kevork Krozian
> Sent: Friday, 21 April 2006 11:53 AM
> To: tech at edulists.com.au
> Subject: [Technical] A "real" world problem for consideration
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
>       In one of my other areas of interest I provide accommodation to
> overseas students around a major university. 
> One of these properties has an Optus cable modem internet link shared by
> 4 workstations through a switching router eg. Netgear or similar.
> 
>   Recently there has been a fair amount of tension between the students
> playing the blame game of accusing each other of slowing down the
> internet link or downloading more than their fair share ( 12GB link
> midday to midnight, 3 GB each if all is fair   ---    20GB midnight to
> midday, 5 GB each if the daytime limit is not breached ) for the month.
> 
> 
>   The solution needs to be  two  ( maybe three ) fold:
> 
>                      1. Bandwidth management -- each user gets one
> quarter of available bandwidth
>                      2. Download usage management -- each user gets no
> more than one quarter of the limit for the month. User can check
> balance.
>                      3. Not be so expensive to setup and maintain , that
> it makes the solution more expensive than setting up individual ADSL
> lines for each student.
> 
>    There is a linux solution --  between cable modema and switching
> router --  ( no need for anything higher than a PIII to do the job )
> using Squid to throttle bandwidth but this may be a hard limit eg.
> 50Kbps rather than " fetch current bandwidth, divide by four , update
> bandwidth allowed for each " .  Any gateway running a Windows platform
> solution will call for a high end machine and that alone makes any
> solution prohibitive.  Or , divide available bandwidth by number of
> users rather than by 4 as there may be bandwidth wasted if not everyone
> is on the network.
>    There is the issue of the rapidly fluctuating throughput measured eg.
> It is not unusual for a machine at home on a small network to record
> anything from 100Kbps to 400 Kbps during a short period depending what
> else is happening. 
> 
>    So, any thoughts out there from my esteemed colleagues ??
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> 
> Kevork Krozian
> IT Manager , Forest Hill College
> k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au
> http://www.fhc.vic.edu.au
> Mobile: 0419 356 034
> 
> 
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