Network help

[ballbreaker]

I live in a condo building that is less than ten floors and internet access for each condo is through the building LAN network.

 

The building network consist of two 30/5Mbps internet lines feeding dual WAN router operating in load balance mode.  Each router port in use connects to an unmanaged switch located on each floor (port 1-floor 1, port 2-floor 2, etc).  Currently no bandwidth limiting exist so all 60 condos have access to the full bandwidth for under 200 baht a month.

 

Its a great service except for the occasional bandwidth hog that might rent a condo and not listen to warnings.  I for one would like service disconnected to offending individuals that continue after one warning but due to soft hearts the majority of decision makers want to give another chance.

 

Recently we experienced someone running downloads 24/7 that hogged 30-40 Mbps so we are finally considering some type of bandwidth limiting that can be applied to individual condos without affecting others.

 

One thing considered is replacement of current unmanaged switches with managed or smart switches that allow reduced bandwidth to a single switch port.

 

Hope someone with network experience can suggest changes that are not overly expensive or can be implemented over time to spread the cost out.

[Chicog]

Can you not just use QoS to put torrents at the bottom of the priority list?

 

It's normally a simple tweak on the router(s).

[johng]

When Mr/Mrs bandwidth hog torrenter turns on encryption on their torrent client,the tweaking isn't quite so simple.

[Chicog]

54 minutes ago, johng said:

When Mr/Mrs bandwidth hog torrenter turns on encryption on their torrent client,the tweaking isn't quite so simple.

 

That's if they know what it is.

 

But you don't have to spend any money to find out.

 

[KittenKong]

I would expect a decent load-balancing router to have some sort of built-in IP based bandwidth management. This should work regardless of what sort of data is being sent/received and is a more suitable solution than QOS for this particular problem.

 

Like this one: http://www.tp-link.co.th/products/details/cat-4910_TL-R470T+.html

 

No point changing the switches.

[ballbreaker]

Let me thank the people that have replied thus far.

 

I would also like to say I understand the purpose of each unit that make up our network but I'm on a learning curve to understand the full capabilities.

 

The suggestions so far point to the router to solve our problem.  I have found what you suggest called bandwidth management when I login to router(called QOS in documentation) that allows you to select rate or priority control.  Rate control would be ideal but we have no way to associate the client name to a condo as listed in DHCP status table.  With our setup it would appear priority control is the way to go but I have no clue which of the services to apply from the list or new ones I can add using services management.  Any help with services to pick that would make bittorrents a low priority.

 

We are using a Linksys RV082 router.

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by ballbreaker

[KittenKong]

I didnt look closely but on that model you can apparently assign IP addresses by MAC address, and then enable bandwidth control by IP address.

See page 60 of the manual: http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/routers/csbr/rv0xx/administration/guide/rv0xx_AG.pdf

 

Obviously it does require some manual setting-up but it should do what you want, though if the naughty co-owner is determined to get around it then he probably can.

For a more water-tight set up, obtain MAC addresses from all users and assign them each a static IP address, and turn off DHCP.

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by KittenKong

[KittenKong]

Actually I think there's a neater way.

 

Obtain MAC addresses from your "good" users. Assign them static IP addresses outside the DHCP range. Then apply bandwidth control to the whole DHCP IP range. Any unregistered device will be throttled but registered ones will not, and you wont have to do any updating unless your registered "good" users change their equipment.

[ballbreaker]

On 11/6/2016 at 10:38 AM, KittenKong said:

Actually I think there's a neater way.

 

Obtain MAC addresses from your "good" users. Assign them static IP addresses outside the DHCP range. Then apply bandwidth control to the whole DHCP IP range. Any unregistered device will be throttled but registered ones will not, and you wont have to do any updating unless your registered "good" users change their equipment.

I like this idea and it will be easy to implement if users give up their MAC address.  If they don't play ball we can leave them in DHCP pool and limit their bandwidth.

 

Thanks for your previous post with link to Administration Guide because I only found User Guide.

 

Also giving thought to installing a managed switch after the router with single cable from router to switch and then feed the floors using switch ports.  This should allow us to easily locate bandwidth hogs by mirroring port on switch when required.  Does anyone see another option to accomplish monitoring?

 

How does one choose a PC that will be able to capture all the data on a 100 Mbps LAN and log that data using programs like Wireshark or Capsa when troubleshooting?  Will will need to run Windows 10 because we have another vendors software that will share this computer.

 

 

 

[KittenKong]

I didn't study it in depth but I would expect the router to do some sort of logging of usage, by IP address. So I dont think that you will need to change any equipment.

 

If the existing router wont do that then it might be cheaper and simpler to replace it with a newer model that will, rather than invest in many new switches etc. Get a gigabit model if you do replace it.