SonicOS 7 System

Enabling Bandwidth Management on an Interface

Bandwidth Management (BWM) allows you to guarantee minimum bandwidth and prioritize traffic. BWM is enabled in Firewall Settings > Bandwidth Management. By controlling the amount of bandwidth to an application or user, you can prevent a small number of applications or users from consuming all available bandwidth. Balancing the bandwidth allocated to different network traffic and then assigning priorities to traffic improves network performance.

Various types of bandwidth management can be enabled:

  • Advanced—Enables you to configure maximum egress and ingress bandwidth limitations per interface, by configuring bandwidth objects, access rules, and application policies.
  • Global—Allows you to enable BWM settings globally and apply them to any interfaces.
  • Global Enh—Similar to Global, but uses a first-come, first-served queue and does not limit the number of packets processed.
  • None (default)—Disables BWM.

For more information about configuring bandwidth management and the effect of the various BWM types, see the SonicOS administration documentation, available at https://www.sonicwall.com/support/technical-documentation.

SonicOS can apply bandwidth management to both egress (outbound) and ingress (inbound) traffic on any interfaces. Outbound bandwidth management is done using Class-based Queuing. Inbound Bandwidth Management is done by implementing an ACK delay algorithm that uses TCP’s intrinsic behavior to control the traffic.

Class-based Queuing (CBQ) provides guaranteed and maximum bandwidth Quality of Service (QoS) for the firewall. Every packet destined to the interface is queued in the corresponding priority queue. The scheduler then dequeues the packets and transmits them on the link depending on the guaranteed bandwidth for the flow and the available link bandwidth.

The options described in this section are only available if Bandwidth Management is enabled in Firewall Settings > Bandwidth Management.

To enable or disable ingress and egress BWM

  1. Navigate to NETWORK | System > Interfaces.
  2. Click the Edit icon of an interface. The Edit Interface dialog displays.
  3. If this is an unassigned interface, configure the interface according to the sections contained in Configuring Interfaces.
  4. On the Advanced screen, scroll to Bandwidth Management.

    Bandwidth Management

    Advanced Settings might differ, depending on the firewall model and the type of zone selected.

  5. Enable Bandwidth Management for this interface.

    1. To limit outgoing traffic to a maximum bandwidth on the interface, select Enable Interface Egress Bandwidth Limitation. This option is not selected by default.

      Specify the maximum bandwidth, in kbps, in the Maximum Interface Egress Bandwidth (kbps) field. The minimum is 20 Kbps, the maximum is 1000000, and the default is 384.000000.

    2. To limit incoming traffic to a maximum bandwidth on the interface, select Enable Interface Ingress Bandwidth Limitation. This option is not selected by default.

      Specify the maximum bandwidth, in kbps, in the Maximum Interface Ingress Bandwidth (kbps) field. The minimum is 20 Kbps, the maximum is 1000000, and the default is 384.000000.

    When either of these options are:

    • Selected, the maximum available egress BWM is defined, but as advanced BWM is policy-based, the limitation is not enforced unless there is a corresponding Access Rule or App Rule.
    • Not selected, no bandwidth limitation is set at the interface level, but traffic can still be shaped using other options.
  6. Optionally, select Enable Default 802.1p tagging to tag information passing through this interface with 802.1p priority information for Quality of Service (QoS) management. This option is not selected by default.

    Packets sent through this interface are tagged with VLAN id=0 and carry 802.1p priority information. To make use of this priority information, devices connected to this interface should support priority frames. QoS management is controlled with access rules established on POLICY | Rules and Policies > Access Rules.

  7. Click OK.

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