How can I configure bandwidth management with limits per IP?

SonicOS Enhanced offers an integrated traffic shaping mechanism through its Egress (outbound) and Ingress (inbound) bandwidth management (BWM) interfaces. Outbound BWM can be applied to traffic sourced from Trusted and Public Zones (such as LAN and DMZ) destined to Untrusted and Encrypted Zones (such as WAN and VPN). Inbound BWM can be applied to traffic sourced from Untrusted and Encrypted Zones destined to Trusted and Public Zones.

This scenario based article describes bandwidth management of traffic from a single or multiple IP addresses using access rules.Where we can apply BWM per IP. With this configuration bandwidth can be controller per IP and user can decide on giving guaranteed bandwidth and maximum bandwidth give per IP. This would be helpful in scenarios where a single user might be choking the network and using too much bandwidth and there is no requirement for any specific bandwidth management based any service.

NOTE: This article about the scenario where there is no bandwidth rule already configured and not required. The only requirement is to make sure that no Single IP can use more bandwidth than specified.

Resolution for SonicOS 7.X

This release includes significant user interface changes and many new features that are different from the SonicOS 6.5 and earlier firmware. The below resolution is for customers using SonicOS 7.X firmware.

Enabling Bandwidth Management : The legacy Global settings of bandwidth management is not available in Gen 7 devices, the options to use either Advanced BWM or global BWM can be applied in GEN6 devices, by default the settings for bandwidth management in GEN 7 is advanced.

Enabling Bandwidth Management on the WAN Interface | Advanced tab

1. BWM configurations begin by enabling BWM on the relevant WAN interface, and declaring the interface’s available bandwidth in Kbps (Kilobits per second).
2. This is performed from the Network | System| Interfaces page by selecting the Configure icon for the WAN interface, and navigating to the Advanced tab.
   
       
   
   
3. Enable and define the bandwidth on the interface.
   
                 
   
   
4. Egress and Ingress BWM can be enabled jointly or separately on WAN interfaces. Different bandwidth values may be entered for outbound and inbound bandwidth to support asymmetric links. Link rates up to 100,000 Kbps (100Mbit) may be declared on Fast Ethernet interfaces, while Gigabit Ethernet interfaces will support link rates up to 1,000,000 Kbps (Gigabit). The speed declared should reflect the actual bandwidth available for the link. Oversubscribing the link (i.e. declaring a value greater than the available bandwidth) is not recommended.

NOTE: Once BWM has been enabled on an interface, and a link speed has been defined, traffic traversing that link will be throttled—both inbound and outbound—to the declared values, even if no Access Rules are configured with BWM settings.

Once one or both BWM settings are enabled on the WAN interface and the available bandwidth has been declared, you can enable the egress and ingress BWM in traffic shaping tab on Access Rules. The options will be present either Inbound settings, Outbound settings, or both, depending on what was enabled on the WAN interface.

Creating Bandwidth Object:

1. Click Object in the top navigation menu.
2. Navigate to Profile Objects | Bandwidth  and click Add.
   
     
   
   
3. Add a Name, Guaranteed/Maximum Bandwidth, Traffic Priority, and Violation Action and click Ok.
   
   

   NOTE: Medium priority is selected here as it is going to be used for entire network and for all the IP's and not for specific service. By default all the traffic handled by firewall is regarded as Medium priority traffic.

   
   
                
   
   
4. Bandwidth throttling per IP can be defined under Elemental tab.With that enabled and a limit defined ,say 1200 kbps. No single IP would be able to utilize more then 1200 kbps bandwidth thus giving all users fair share of bandwidth.
   
              

Creating or Editing an Access Rule to apply Bandwidth Management

1. Navigate to Policy| Rules and Policies | Access Rules and find the access.
2. Edit the default any to any allow access rule and a new tab BWM will be seen.
   
               
   
   
3. With this rule , SonicWall will only limit the usage of bandwidth per IP to 1200 kbps and would not actually affect any other service .

How to test.

Log out of SonicWall and test the speed from any pc on LAN .It's max speed will be limited around 1 Mbps.

Resolution for SonicOS 6.5

This release includes significant user interface changes and many new features that are different from the SonicOS 6.2 and earlier firmware. The below resolution is for customers using SonicOS 6.5 firmware.

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  Enabling BWM on the firewall

1. To view the BWM configuration, navigate to the Manage | Security Configuration | Bandwidth Management | BWM page.
2. Change the Bandwidth management type from default none to Advance.
   

• Enabling Bandwidth Management on the WAN Interface | Advanced tab

1. BWM configurations begin by enabling BWM on the relevant WAN interface, and declaring the interface’s available bandwidth in Kbps (Kilobits per second).
2. This is performed from the Network | Interfaces page by selecting the Configure icon for the WAN interface, and navigating to the Advanced tab.
   
   
3.  Enable and define the bandwidth on the interface.
    
4. Egress and Ingress BWM can be enabled jointly or separately on WAN interfaces. Different bandwidth values may be entered for outbound and inbound bandwidth to support asymmetric links. Link rates up to 100,000 Kbps (100Mbit) may be declared on Fast Ethernet interfaces, while Gigabit Ethernet interfaces will support link rates up to 1,000,000 Kbps (Gigabit). The speed declared should reflect the actual bandwidth available for the link. Oversubscribing the link (i.e. declaring a value greater than the available bandwidth) is not recommended.

NOTE: Once BWM has been enabled on an interface, and a link speed has been defined, traffic traversing that link will be throttled—both inbound and outbound—to the declared values, even if no Access Rules are configured with BWM settings.

Once one or both BWM settings are enabled on the WAN interface and the available bandwidth has been declared, a Bandwidth tab will appear on Access Rules. The BWM tab will present either Inbound settings, Outbound settings, or both, depending on what was enabled on the WAN interface.

• Creating Bandwidth Object

1. This configuration is done using Advance bandwidth management and need bandwidth object to be created.
2. Navigate to Manage | Objects | Bandwidth objects and add an object.
   
   

   NOTE: Medium priority is selected here as it is going to be used for entire network and for all the IP's and not for specific service. By default all the traffic handled by firewall is regarded as Medium priority traffic.

3. Bandwidth throttling per IP can be defined under Elemental tab.With that enabled and a limit defined ,say 1200 kbps. No single IP would be able to utilize more then 1200 kbps bandwidth thus giving all users fair share of bandwidth.
   

• Create Access rule

1. Navigate to Manage | Policies | Rules | Access Rules | LAN to WAN.
2. Edit the default any to any allow access rule and a new tab BWM will be seen.
   
3. With this rule , SonicWall will only limit the usage of bandwidth per IP to 1200 kbps and would not actually affect any other service .

How to test.

Log out of SonicWall and test the speed from any pc on LAN .It's max speed will be limited around 1 Mbps.