I just started using Tomato a few days ago. I was having odd DHCP issues and figured a new firmware would give me something new to tinker with.

I followed the guide here:
http://www.myopenrouter.com/article/25150/Toastman-s-Tomato-USB-Firmware-on-t...


Just start with getting the right stuff flashed and then worry about QOS. Its all quite straightforward.

When I flashed to DD-WRT (as the guide requires) I didn't give it adequate time to reboot and cycled the power. I then thought I bricked the router. So, while it may not be the case for you, make sure to give the flash to DD-WRT at least a few minutes to finish.

Firmware choice is a delicate matter. Like, boxers or briefs... or maybe none at all.

I honestly think you might be better served with Tomato as it is easier to configure in my opinion. I'm new here, but I've used ddwrt in the past and tomato is easier. If you absolutely need dual SSID I think, for now, you have to go DDWRT.

For me I flashed DD-WRT looked at it said "yup, thats dd-wrt" and flashed tomato all from the link above.

Toastman (also on the forum) changed to a different host.

http://www.4shared.com/dir/v1BuINP3/Toastman_Builds.html

Being new to flashing the WNR3500L I just picked what was linked in the article.

http://www.myopenrouter.com/download/25168/Toastman-s-Tomato-Firmware-for-WNR...


Technically, version #7440 isn't the most bleeding edge upto date build, but its working for me so I suggested it. If you go to the 4shared.com site you can get another version, but be careful to choose the correct one. For this reason I just went with what the article suggested. :)

QOS is an exhaustive topic. You can really truly spend a lot of time on it but it can help greatly.

I'll explain my setup, and the choices I made and we'll see if it helps.

I work from home and use Vonage. Because of this I have the Vonage MAC address in its own class (VOIP/Game). This ensures anything that little Vonage box wants to do gets classified properly. You could get the MAC address (It'll be on the Overview screen) of your XBOX and create a similar rule.

I then have Work VPN which comes from/to a specific IP. I have that classified as MAIL (just so it is segmented in the pretty graphs). From there the rest of my rules are basically from Toastman's Easy QOS Setup here: http://tomatousb.org/tut:easy-toastman-qos-setup

Now, the next link is from Toastman again, and is an overwhelming amount of QOS information - but all you could ever really need to know.

http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=63486

Regarding the default rates - the router has no idea about your connection and those are just defaults. I think you're probably overthinking QOS importance on your network and really if you ensure your XBOX gets priority (to ensure nice low pings) you should be good to go.

A word of advice. In Toastman's rules he has listed some with a transfer amount. This means, after the connection has transferred X number of bytes to move it to the next classification. I did not know this, and for 4 hours one work day Vonage only allowed me to say "hi" and then cut me off. This was because the vonage rule had a transfer limiter, and then no later rule to takeover.

Good luck.

Glad its going well. I registered here to help new ppl as I too am quite happy w/ Tomato.

If you read the various QOS tutorials and links most agree to set the limits to 85% of the total. They also recommend running speedtests through the day.

Your setup of 2 computers and an XBOX is simple enough, and your bandwidth is large enough, that I personally think if you give priority to the XBOX (not top priority - you want that to be DNS) that you'd likely be just fine.

When you have the XBOX rule setup, you'll be able to see on the graphs how much bandwidth it actually uses. It very likely does not require your entire connection.

The most important thing is to use the system. If its working great already, then you might not need to much QOS. The easy rules I sent above, for me, were a good base. I added my Vonage (by MAC), my Work VPN and so far so good did some other tweaks and so far, so good.

You could just put the xbox MAC in there and then no matter what the XBOX does it would get classified as VOIP/Game.

Well QOS is not a strict allocation like a pie. If it were you couldn't have more than 100%. You allocate how much bandwidth you want that service to ever take, and then, based on the rules order it divides it up.

So if XBOX has 85% and Web has 85% - its not like you have 170% of your bandwidth. You've got XBOX in Rule #2 and Web in say Rule #6 then priority goes to XBOX and neither service is going to take more than 85% of your total bandwidth.

Removing a service you don't use isn't a good or bad thing. It isn't going to be utilized so it has no affect on QOS.

I have MAIL set to like 85% because I classify my work VPN as Mail and it can require a lot of bandwidth. Incidentally I have web set to 85% because my wife likes speedy internets. I have MAIL above Web so when she starts uploading 1000 photos to facebook of our baby I can still work, and use Vonage. Thats the beauty of QOS - prioritization.

Is everything else working? I find Tomato to be fantastic. Good enough that I wanted to contribute back by helping others. :)

What is the url? I've never heard of it.

QOS is packet loss - packet loss is not all bad. QOS is a terribly complex topic that only the urls I've posted do justice to, I just know enough to be moderately helpful.

Why don't you turn QOS off and try this stuff again.

Do you find problems? Are things slow? If not, and this is my advanced age speaking here, just leave it alone. I know when I was younger I'd tweak and tweak but now.. if its working, I leave it alone. :)

So I ran these tests and I am now even more happy with Tomato.

First, on my QOS rules, the majority of this traffic was classified as "service" which only had max 20%. According to Tomato it would have no more than 120KB/s and according to the test that is exactly what I got. Very impressive.

I then tweaked it to give Service 100% and again it was, to the kilobyte, accurate.

It's clear all your issues are QOS related and they are by design.

The test shows things are affected. In normal use, are things affected?

Every journey has an end. You've reached the end of my knowledge. I don't really know how to address the upload buffer issue - perhaps its a tcp setting but I do not know.

Did the new firmware version fix your issues?

I've been monitoring QOS a little more lately and continue to be pleased. Last night NetflixHD was streaming to PS3 - it runs on port 80 - was classified as Download (since it had been moving more than 10mb) vs Web were it under 10mb, and happily moved data at about 8megabits for the entire duration of the HD show.

I have 13 devices and QOS seems to be keeping everything running smoothly.