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Traffic Shaping For VOIP With m0n0wall

My screencast guide to traffic shaping for VOIP using m0n0wall has been posted on the m0n0wall web site.

However, Manuel Kasper (m0n0wall project lead) had some interesting ideas on how to revise and perhaps simplify my approach. What he describes departs from the approach underlying the present implementation of the Magic Shaper in m0n0wall. Use of the Magic Shaper is the basis of the existing screencast.

Updated to provide a YouTube version in the post and ftp downloadable high quality version.

Manuel’s suggestions are based upon sound principles but not observation of an actual installation. As such I’m going to make some adjustments to my router configuration and run with it for a few weeks. If it has advantages over my earlier configuration I’ll be redoing the screencast to reflect this revised approach.

Eventually Manuel may get around to either reworking or eliminating the Magic Shaper tool in m0n0wall.

Perhaps the best written docs on the traffic shaping feature are in Adam Nellemann’s post to the m0n0wall user list, way back in Feb 2004.

At the moment the m0n0wall web site offers the file only in wmv format, which is probably not helpful for people on non-Windows systems. Here’s a copy I uploaded to YouTube, although their image quality is not great.

If you want the 28 MB full-resolution H.264 encoded MOV file you can download it here.

This Post Has 8 Comments
  1. Michael, your screencast does not play for me. Is it some proprietary Microsoft format?

  2. Yes, those folks who oversee the monowall web site could only fetch the wmv format file at first. I have passed them several file types, some of which are quite large.

    For the moment I’ve uploaded one to YouTube so that I can embed it int this post. And another, full resolution file to an ftp server. Just in case you want the full size, hi-quality version.

  3. Question really – Is there a better way to post this to you?

    Your webinar on m0n0wall and voip was great and makes the solution very quick to adapt. I have used m0n0wall for about 6 years and voip has become quite a solution for our company on an enterprise level for our remote offices using m0n0.

    Our SIP solution uses a NAT 1:1 rule for passthrough to the PBX from the SIP ISP. We are unsure if your voip “piping” with see the traffic and if the traffic shaper will work with the use of NAT 1:1 translation form a public to a private address of the PBX on the LAN. We are passing traffic quite well , but have an issue wioth and or without the modified voip traffic shaper that heavy http traffic “you tube” will cause the calls to drop.

    http should end up like “best effort” and we do have some QOS on the ISP and they are concerned we are canceling out the ISP QOS with our network settings

    Any comments or suggestions

    THanks

    1. John,

      I expect that the mechanism that I use would also work for you. It uses th traffic shaper to assign bandwidth to a specific block of IP addresses that are my VoIP devices. TOTH, you could put this question to the forums at the m0n0wall web site, or onto their mailing list and get opinion for those with more experience than I.

  4. Download link for the H.264 encoded MOV file seems to be bunk, promps for a username and password but does not accept “anonymous” w/email address as password.

    1. Thanks for pointing this out. The server that the file was on at my employers HQ had been decommissioned. I’ve put the file on my blog host and altered the link accordingly.

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