Limit maximum internet bandwidth users can consume

For this example we will divide the internet Download traffic between the connected users in such manner that each user will receive up to a maximum of 1 Mbps.

Simple network diagram

To start go to Firewall ‣ Shaper ‣ Pipes.

Step 1 - Create download and upload pipes

On the Pipes tab click the + button in the lower right corner. An empty Edit Pipe screen will popup.

Create Pipe For Download

enabled	Checked	Check to enable the pipe
bandwidth	1	Numeric value of the desired bandwidth
bandwidth Metric	Mbit/s	Metric to use with the numeric value
mask	destination	Dynamic pipe per downloading client
description	PipeDown-1Mbps	Free field, enter something descriptive

Create Pipe For Upload

enabled	Checked	Check to enable the pipe
bandwidth	1	Numeric value of the desired bandwidth
bandwidth Metric	Mbit/s	Metric to use with the numeric value
mask	source	Dynamic pipe per uploading client
description	PipeUp-1Mbps	Free field, enter something descriptive

Note

Always create separate pipes for download and upload limiting to avoid undefined behaviour when mixing bidirectional traffic in a single pipe.

Step 2 - Create rules

On the Rules tab click the + button in the lower right corner. An empty Edit rule screen will popup.

Create a rule for traffic coming from the internet (download).

sequence	21	Auto generated number, overwrite only when needed
interface	WAN	Select the interface connected to the internet
proto	ip	Select the protocol, IP in our example
source	any	The source address, leave on any
src-port	any	The source port to shape, leave on any
destination	192.168.1.0/24	The destination IP to shape, select LAN network
dst-port	any	The destination port to shape, leave on any
target	PipeDown-1Mbps	Select the 1 Mbps download pipe
description	ShapeDownload	Enter a descriptive name

Create a rule for traffic going to the internet (upload).

sequence	22	Auto generated number, overwrite only when needed
interface	WAN	Select the interface connected to the internet
proto	ip	Select the protocol, IP in our example
source	192.168.1.0/24	The source IP to shape, select LAN network
src-port	any	The source port to shape, leave on any
destination	any	The destination address, leave on any
dst-port	any	The destination port to shape, leave on any
target	PipeUp-1Mbps	Select the 1 Mbps upload pipe
description	ShapeUpload	Enter a descriptive name

Note

If you want to limit traffic for a specific IP addresses then just enter the IP addresses in the destination field instead of the full LAN network range.

Now press to activate the traffic shaping rules.

Screenshot Rules

Prioritize using Queues

By utilizing queues we can influence the bandwidth within a pipe and give certain applications more bandwidth than others based on a weighted algorithm.

The idea is simple: Let presume we have a pipe of 10 Mbps and 2 applications for instance smtp (email) and http(s). The http(s) traffic will get a weight of 1 and the smtp traffic a weight of 9, then when all capacity of our pipe is in use the email traffic will get 9x more bandwidth than our http(s) traffic, resulting in 1 Mbps for http(s) and 9 Mbps for smtp.

For our example we only look at download traffic, but the exact same can be done for the upload traffic.

Application	Weight	Minimum Bandwidth
SMTP (port 25)	9	9 Mbps
HTTP (80)	1	1 Mbps
HTTPS (443)

To start go to Firewall ‣ Shaper ‣ Pipes.

Step 1 - Create Download Pipe

On the Pipes tab click the + button in the lower right corner. An empty Edit Pipe screen will popup.

Create Pipe For Download (10 Mbps)

enabled	Checked	Check to enable the pipe
bandwidth	10	Numeric value of the desired bandwidth
bandwidth Metric	Mbit/s	Metric to use with the numeric value
mask	(empty)	Leave empty
description	PipeDown-10Mbps	Free field, enter something descriptive

Step 2 - Create Queues

On the Queues tab click the + button in the lower right corner. An empty Edit queue screen will popup.

Create Queue for SMTP

enabled	Checked	Check to enable the pipe
pipe	PipeDown-10Mbps	Select our Pipe
weight	9	Weight to use with the numeric value
mask	(empty)	Leave empty
description	Queue-SMTP	Free field, enter something descriptive

Create Queue for HTTP

enabled	Checked	Check to enable the pipe
pipe	PipeDown-10Mbps	Select our Pipe
weight	1	Weight to use with the numeric value
mask	(empty)	Leave empty
description	Queue-HTTP	Free field, enter something descriptive

Step 3 - Create Rules

On the Rules tab click the + button in the lower right corner. An empty Edit rule screen will popup.

Create a rule for smtp download traffic (email)

sequence	11	Auto generated number, overwrite only when needed
interface	WAN	Select the interface connected to the internet
proto	ip	Select the protocol, IP in our example
source	any	The source address, leave on any
src-port	smtp	The source port to shape, smtp or 25
destination	any	The destination IP to shape, leave on any
dst-port	any	The destination port to shape, leave on any
target	Queue-SMTP	Select the SMTP queue
description	ShapeSMTPDownload	Enter a descriptive name

Create a rule for HTTP download traffic

sequence	21	Auto generated number, overwrite only when needed
interface	WAN	Select the interface connected to the internet
proto	ip	Select the protocol, IP in our example
source	any	The source address, leave on any
src-port	http	The source port to shape, http or 80
destination	any	The destination IP to shape, leave on any
dst-port	any	The destination port to shape, leave on any
target	Queue-HTTP	Select the HTTP queue
description	ShapeHTTPDownload	Enter a descriptive name

Adding an extra rule for HTTPS traffic is simple as we can use the same HTTP queue if we like:

sequence	31	Auto generated number, overwrite only when needed
interface	WAN	Select the interface connected to the internet
proto	ip	Select the protocol, IP in our example
source	any	The source address, leave on any
src-port	https	The source port to shape, https or 443
destination	any	The destination IP to shape, leave on any
dst-port	any	The destination port to shape, leave on any
target	Queue-HTTP	Select the HTTP queue
description	ShapeHTTPSDownload	Enter a descriptive name

This way HTTP and HTTPS traffic will be treated the same (total max of 1 Mbps).

Now press to activate the traffic shaping rules.

Screenshot Rules