interesting thing I just did with vonage + rtp300+ konfabulator

[Goosemaster]

I have a vonage provided Linksys RTP300

By turning off DHCP and setting it to a static IP on it's subnet + get this, looping back it's WAN port to one of it's switch ports+ get this, connecting one of it's switch ports to my linksyswrt54gs's (acting only as an AP with the WAN port isdsabled) switch ports + connecting that to my soekris router which is providing DHCP for everybody + setting the vonage yahoo! widget I have achieved:

1) Good EFFECTIVE QoS via m0n0wall like I wanted...I didn't want to rely on the RTP300
2) RTP300 can now effectively send VoIP traffic out to the net and yet:
a) is still on the same subnet as everything else that neighbors it
b) serves only as a switch
c) is visible by all computer on the network including the one with the vonage widget on it (mine)

Basically, I can see call activity, messages, lower the volume for itunes automatically when recieving a call, have quality QoS, and don't have to worry about silly stuff like NAT and such when plugging things into the RTP300

What the hell are you talking about you crazy bastard? (explanation via visio )


P.S.
Did I mention I can run BT at full blast without it effecting VoIP calls
Hopefully I can get a crossover cable tomorrow and put the RTP300 on it's own network with the wired PC plugged into it.


more along these lines (my old setup)



EDIT:

1/03/06



Okay, after a bunch of testing, I came to the conclusion that absolutely flooding/saturating the line like mad with Bittorrent ruined my voice calls. In the past heay traffic had been handled fine, but this was on a whole other level. Unfortuantely, during INSANE bittorrent loads, when a bunch of seeders would decide to come out of the woodwork, BT would download @ around 500KB/s and upload at 40KB/s which would completely void my ruleset. Inbound audio is flawless, but outgoing audio, what people on the other end hear, is temporarily broken up and garbled every few seconds, and is many times simply unheard. Since I had been monitoring CPU usage and found it to be a nonissue (40% was the max with a jump to 100% here and there, but not during the outages) I had to go back to the drawing board

So I messed with it some more.


My Now Happy Go Lucky Network

It is ALMOST perfect but still, during extremely loads, outgoing voice is jsut a little garbled. It recovers but I want perfection. When my network is freed up, as in when tranfers are at a minimum, or even when moderate traffic is traversing it, VoIP quality is simply fantastic. Everyone who calls or is called is amazed, and I want that to be true even when BT is on.:evil:

In the hopes that some of you can help me, I will post all my configs. Hopefully someoen will point out a flaw and it will prove to be the fix that finalyl makes my network something that I can be proud of

Here are my configs:

My interfaces

My NAT rules

My firewall/ACl rules

My traffic shaping rules

My traffic shaping pipes

My traffic shaping queues



Obviously I still have other thigns to take care of like throttling SMTP and POP and perhaps other things, but for the mean time, I want to get this ironed out


THANKS


P.S. And that static route you ask? well, it is so the konfabulator/yahoo widget can access the VoIP aapter, and yes, it does work

 

[RedCOMET]

cool.

 

[Goosemaster]

Okay, after a bunch of testing, I came to the conclusion that absolutely flooding/saturating the line like mad with Bittorrent ruined my voice calls. In the past heay traffic had been handled fine, but this was on a whole other level. Unfortuantely, during INSANE bittorrent loads, when a bunch of seeders would decide to come out of the woodwork, BT would download @ around 500KB/s and upload at 40KB/s which would completely void my ruleset. Inbound audio is flawless, but outgoing audio, what people on the other end hear, is temporarily broken up and garbled every few seconds, and is many times simply unheard. Since I had been monitoring CPU usage and found it to be a nonissue (40% was the max with a jump to 100% here and there, but not during the outages) I had to go back to the drawing board

So I messed with it some more.


My Now Happy Go Lucky Network

It is ALMOST perfect but still, during extremely loads, outgoing voice is jsut a little garbled. It recovers but I want perfection. When my network is freed up, as in when tranfers are at a minimum, or even when moderate traffic is traversing it, VoIP quality is simply fantastic. Everyone who calls or is called is amazed, and I want that to be true even when BT is on.:evil:

In the hopes that some of you can help me, I will post all my configs. Hopefully someoen will point out a flaw and it will prove to be the fix that finalyl makes my network something that I can be proud of

Here are my configs:

My interfaces

My NAT rules

My firewall/ACl rules

My traffic shaping rules

My traffic shaping pipes

My traffic shaping queues



Obviously I still have other thigns to take care of like throttling SMTP and POP and perhaps other things, but for the mean time, I want to get this ironed out


THANKS

P.S. And that static route you ask? well, it is so the konfabulator/yahoo widget can access the VoIP aapter, and yes, it does work

 

[Goosemaster]

I am having problems:

I have other equipment but the soekris is the only one acting as router for now. All the others are being used as switches or APs.

Frankly, what I am trying to do is take control of bittorrent, VoIP, and web browsing.
My goal is to have VoIP prioritized above all other services, and to keep HTTP usable under heavy loads.

During my old setup, two things were going wrong when I was flooding the network. For the most part, eve when the network is rather busy, everything works well. It's just when I really push it that things get ugly. I've checked and it is not a router CPU issue.

VoIP calls: after a while, outbound VoIP traffic would start to falter, and although the person on the other line remained clear, they could not hear us.

Http: for some reason, regular web browsing has never been snappy when the network is under load, regardless of the rules that I put in place.


Maybe it's that I am asking too much of my soekris + m0n0wall setup, but I want to get it running perfectly. This has only occurred a few times though (hence this thread on the subject praising my setup and practically none since).

m0n0wall Traffic Shaping Manual) alpha version)


I tried following the advice in that manual, but it still hasn't given me the results that I want. From what I understand, each Pipe allows for independent queues, which helps in regulating burdensome traffic. In the past, I had created two VoIP pipes (in/out) and two bulk pipes (in/out) as you can see above. I have since removed the HTTP pipe. I made sure that both pipes were appropriately sized for the available bandwidth. I have created adequate queues and such as well for each pipe, with many for the bulk pipes and only one for the VoIP pipe. In the end, the pipes seemed like they were designed to limit certain types of traffic rather than prioritize it, so I am sticking to only two pipes (in/out) and queues right now and am focusing on prioritization.


My goal is to allow low-priority services to use as much bandwidth as they want until a higher priority service requests the line, and to have the low-priority service back off. From my understanding, queues are of more use to me than pipes.
Basically, I would like your thoughts on this. I can post pictures of links to screenshots of my routers config if you like, but I was hoping I could get advice on adequate pipe/queue usage for my situation.



For the record, I now have two pipes and multiple queues on those two pipes.

 

[skyking]

Here ya go goose. I don't want it to look like you are having a conversation with yourself in here.

Blah blah interesting, have you tried blah blah yadda yadda................

 

[RebateMonger]

How much do concurrent downloads affect the quality of Vonage conversations? I have Cox cable modem (6Mbps/512kbps) and route all my home PCs and my Vonage lines through my SBS 2003 Server with ISA 2004. My Vonage sound quality seems fine. But I seldom do continuous, big, downloads.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
How much do concurrent downloads affect the quality of Vonage conversations? I have Cox cable modem (6Mbps/512kbps) and route all my home PCs and my Vonage lines through my SBS 2003 Server with ISA 2004. My Vonage sound quality seems fine. But I seldom do continuous, big, downloads.

Honestly, the only thing tht really affects VoIP is bitorrent. If bittorrent is using more than 15KB/s UP, the vonage conenction appears to slowly get worse, with the other person progressively unable to hear us.