A noob with MONEY, battling buffer bloat HELP!

Hello everyone. I am new. VERY new and I have to become MORE THAN

an enthusiast FAST! Been on a quest to solve excessive

ping latency under load as my lively hood depends on it. Let me start by saying

I know NOTHING. I'm not a coder/programmer. TOTALLY NEW at networking.

So new I don't even know the right questions to even ask...

In the war against buffer bloat I came across Dave Taht and his YouTube lecture.

Approaching him via email, and telling him what I was trying to accomplish

he blurted out APU2 and OpenWRT....and that was it. I was left to now work on THAT

"mystery". I am not doing anything wirelessly and WILL never. I am looking for hardwired

solutions. Currently I have a 500D / 50U speed package from my ISP. I am connected via

a Motorola MB8600 DOCSIS3.1 "bridge" modem with 4 Ether ports on the back, only using

one at the moment directly connected to my PC with a Cat8 Ethernet cable with an RJ45

termination. I have a biz account so I have 5 IP addresses to make us of as well (for port bonding?).

I bought a cheap $89 Netgear Business 24-port Gigabit Ethernet Smart Managed Plus Switch

Model - JGS524Ev2 and I don't even know if I need it yet lolol. I know the WAN comes into my

modem, supposed to go then to a router, then to a switch? and on to my PC...and I "think" that's correct lolol. I might have bought the wrong thing. At this point I don't know. I do know that so solve my buffer bloat I need something / a set up involving a router and firmware that I can instruct to

"order packets" and keep them from bottlenecking. Right now I have a 9 - 11ms ping IF NOTHING ELSE is going on. Under load of activity it jumps to 396ms (in that area).

As I said, I have money / a budget. Its a biz expense so I don't have to skimp on CPU's or RAM

or anything... Someone with expertise of buffer bloat and hardware / networking please help

the new guy with more money than sense (at this point) lolol

Thank you :slight_smile:

As it happens I have more sense than money and would be willing to trade.

Here's the basics:

  1. install openwrt on APU2
  2. connect docsis modem in bridge mode to APU2 WAN port
  3. Connect APU2 LAN port to smart managed switch
  4. Get APU2 online and install luci-app-sqm package
  5. configure luci-app-sqm using "piece-of-cake" with your speeds in up and down direction.

At your speeds, this should be pretty much enough to get about 85-90% of the way to perfect.

Incidentally, let me guess, you have a number of VOIP lines for the business and/or you are doing a lot of video conferencing due to COVID, and these are breaking when people use the internet at the same time?

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Bufferbloat is solved with SQM. More powerful routers like the mvebu series (new Linksys stuff like WRT32X) allow fast speeds.

I wasn't totally clear on if you have an APU2 already, if not, you need to decide on your hardware first. Plenty of options.

buy some cheap x86 router - they are times faster than arm or mips dog toys. and an apu boards are not so fast as some hyped folks are tells.

Well, the jury is still out what gives the most bang for the buck. As demonstrated by @dlakelan, a cheap (~50EUR) raspberry pi 4B can do traffic shaping at 1 Gbps, I severely doubt any new x86 is available at that pricepoint at all (not even bothering whether it can shape at that rate). This is all about trade-offs and price (initial purchase and energy cost) is IMHO quite an important factor :wink:

nah this is not a proper router board but making cripled "router" with it isn't good idea looking for time spend and reliable as proper router.for rpi You need managed switch or usb nic and those are extra costs, memory card etc and this is pointless.

Well, none of the typical home-routers are really all that well designed as "proper" big iron routers, but they are also considerably cheaper, and as I said price is an important factor.

Sure, an USB3 ethernet dongle retails for 15 EUR that does not significantly change the equation on a rpi4b versus x86...

Nobody forces you to use a raspberry pi as router, but claiming that to be pointless for the "on a tight budget" crowd seems not very helpful or realistic, no?

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yes, but You are telling me that 50euro rpi plus 15euro set are for people "on tight budget" so 65euro i'm for sure is for those folks ... have nice day :slight_smile:

Well, compared to new x86 prices 65EUR still looks like a steal to me, and that was what I was implicitly comparing against.
But I guess we are talking past each other, so the best I can do is note our disconnect and stop this unproductive subthread :wink:

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Hi Guys,

Sorry for the delay. I take in things, then start pouring over reading about ANYTHING that was mentioned lol.

In answer to your assumption dlakelan, no this is a dedicated line. NOTHING else on it but the PC, for the speed and it is for Trading i.e. equities, options etc, etc... as I said before I have a 600D / 50U speed tier from my ISP and 5 static IP address block to use. NOTHING on WIFI, all "wired". Have a 9 - 11ms ping right now...but that is with no "load" of anything else. When there IS load, it jumps to 396 area.

Trading, the connection will certainly be under load... real-time streaming charts on 12 27" monitors....but I need my keystroke speed when hitting the buy / sell button! Coaxial is clean and clear from the outside "tap" through the "drop" to the Motorola MB8600 DOCSIS 3.1 modem/bridge.

I have a new Netgear (don't know if they are any good) Business 24-port Gigabit Ethernet Smart Managed Plus Switch model JGS524Ev2, that I don't even know if I need OR if I need something else. Router for this "operation" no clue right now...I have been pouring over the openwrt.org list page https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128 and don't know about anything therein listed. I was initially told about APU2 (pcengines), but there are many "choices" of the APU line to choose from as well. I have been to the teklager.se website as well and got even MORE confused as they offer the APU2 and others as "kits" you can configure and order for self-assembly OR just order one put together by them....THEN I saw the Qotom industrial mimi PC's they sell on the site for the same purposes etc, etc.... my head is spinning.

So no, do not have a router yet, only the 24-port Gigabit Ethernet smart managed switch plus (still in its box) and connected to the WAN via a dedicated coaxial on a DOCSIS 3.1 I DO need hardware selection help! Keep in mind I have a budget to go all out, so give me the biggest, baddest, fastest thing out there, then let me "pare back" if I think I need to. :-))) My biggest "expense" so far has been buying the "wrong stuff" lolol......

I need PRO or PROSUMER equipment, quite possibly rack mounted bordering on "home lab" (see how well I can use "buzzwords" so far? LOLOL

.....To to be "future proofed" and the future looks like 10GB (on the low end) symmetrical FTTP connection soooooooooooo.......that's where I'm at on this.

Give it up, from home you have no (as in ZERO) chance against professional high frequency traders, period.... Think about it, these guys operate microwave relay networks, as microwave in air is faster than photons in glas, so they gain a low millisecond advantage on routes like New York city to Chicago. :wink:

That said,

that sounds like something that is not necessary anymore, and you should be able to control that much better.

Yes, but it is really hard to unearth the real requirements under the buzz words...

Simply don't, buy gear for your immediate or well predictable immediate future needs, think about 10G once it becomes available... at least that would be recommndation.

I am WELL AWARE of the RF trading capabilities of the HFTraders.....I just had a conference call with MacKay Bros. / Quincey Data, who supplies all of that to the big houses. There services are actually for traders that have their own co-located server equipment from data center to data center. I am a discretionary trader. and I "USE" the HFTrades and THEIR algos to move MY positions :slight_smile: I'm afraid I know what I'm doing ( for the past 28 years ) and I have an 8 figure trading account. Just trying to improve my tech. That is what I'm doing HERE.....

Now then, is there anyone here who can "read" what I am posting and advise appropriately on the equipment to professionally solve my needs without trying to tell me my business? :slight_smile: I shall wait patiently with full attention.

Fiber optic connected ping from Chicago / Aurora, IL to NY (NJ actually) is around 6.7ms round trip, via RF transmission from data center to data center is right at around 4ms round trip.

I have been put in the position where I have to do WHAT I do from a remote location as I am caring for an elderly parent during this global health crisis. My request for help and assistance is sincere and the few people I have been in contact with so far..... advised me to come HERE....

Bufferbloat only really matters if you notice too much latency using your network. Often just a change in browser or router will get you at least a B grade on dslreports. It's been documented that different browsers generate different bufferbloat scores. Using SQM on your router uses more cpu and memory. One expert here has said the only package you ever really need to install is luci-ssl, to enable https login. Good luck to you in your bufferbloat quest!

"SQM uses more cpu and memory" - Are you referring to router CPU use and router memory or PC?

Mostly CPU, traffic shaping unfortunately is computationally expensive. That said, it seems that a relative lowly raspberry pi4B can actually traffic shape at 1Gbps without running out of CPU cycles. Typically higher end x86 CPU also are well capable of traffic shaping at high rates, the old MIPS SoCs from 10 years ago however will not cut it, nor will all ARM SoCs (some will most will not, but as the rpi4b shows that is not a limitation of ARM cpus but simply coming from the fact that most router SoCs are simply not targeted at high CPU performance kind of jobs).

Memory wise SQM is not necessarily much worse than the old default of 1000 packet buffers in the ethernet drivers (and worst case memory can be limited for SQM if need be, but for reasonably modern routers memory/ram typically is not the relevant bottleneck for SQM IMHO).

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router cpu use