[SLL] mod_throttle?

[Glenn Stone]

On Sun, May 01, 2005 at 10:12:29AM -0700, Jesse Keating wrote:
>On Fri, 2005-04-29 at 19:04 -0700, Bill Warner wrote:
>> I recently exposed some audio content on my web server that has maxed 
>> out my upstream bandwidth. I like the idea of giving away john
>> coltrane 
>> songs, but it interferes with other traffic on the server. I've
>> looked 
>> into throttling apache content with mod_throttle, but before I
>> install 
>> it, I thought I'd ask you guys if there's something else I should be 
>> looking into.
>> 
>> So, any experience w/ mod_throttle to report?
>
>When I started Fedora Legacy, I was running the master mirror server
>from my main hosting system.  Needless to say I experiences a massive
>bandwidth suckage.  I tried using mod_throttle, but found it not all
>that reliable (this was apache 1.4 stuff in RHL 7.3).  Maybe it was
>because I was dealing with a lot of small files, namely rpm header files
>and stuff.  The file were too small to really engage mod_throttle, but
>with so many people connecting my bandwidth was still being used quite
>heavily.  I also tried setting folder limits and connection limits, but
>it really didn't work all that well.  Maybe with streams and more
>consistent connections throttle will work well.

Two suggestions, one that might work, one that most likely will but requires
more work (and root access):

1) Upgrade to apache2 and use mod_bwshare.  (Haven't dug very far into
   this...)

2) Do your bandwidth control with QoS at the kernel/firewall level.  I know
   for sure this works; I did it the other way sharing download bandwidth
   between me and my wife when we were stuck on dialup.  

I imagine, however, that whatever you do will work better on MP3's than it
will on RPM's, for the simple reason that the average size of an MP3 (3-4
MB) is a lot bigger than your average RPM (things like OpenOffice.org aside)
and thus you don't get stuck in the "this is little, let it slide by"
heuristics... ("bursting" is the technical term.)

-- Glenn