Setup guide and data quota configuration for CPE radios
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Hi Team, I have just added a second Ethernet port to my Intel NUC and I'm ready to install Bandwidth Manager.
Is there any start-to-finish setup guide available? Also, can somebody help me set up a data quota on 2 client CPE radios that I have in a point-to-point setup? Cheers
We don't really have a step-by-step guide due to the huge range of possible scenarios and their complexity in BWM setup and use.
If you want to use a mini-PC as a bridge to setup data quota for devices connected to it, the first step would be to decide how you are going to route traffic through the box. Assuming you have NIC1 plugged into your router and NIC2 plugged to a switch feeding the radios, you can choose between:
- Use built-in Windows feature called Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). This will create another LAN on NIC2 and your radios would access the Internet through the ICS service. There is a number of guides how to setup ICS on the Internet; or
- Use Bandwidth Manager's bridging feature. This will switch both NICs into promiscuous mode and enable traffic forwarding, making it a transparent bridge. It's important that both NICs support this mode as we have seen some cheap USB network adapters that do not.
Once your traffic forwarding is operational and the radios can access the Internet, you can proceed with creating quotas and imposing bandwidth caps on them as needed.
Thank you Andrew, I will use option b. I have EdgeRouter and EdgeSwitch, I will setup 3 VLANs on the EdgeRouter
How would the Bandwidth Manager be setup to apply the quotas to the 3 different VLANs?
As far as I remember, Bandwidth Manager is capable of handling VLAN-tagged frames, but I am not sure this will work with bridging.
I guess you could try to see if it works as expected. Then if bridging works, you could just set a rule that applies to the specific VLAN IP address range. For example, all traffic from and to 10.0.0.x could be handled by rule #1, all traffic from and to 10.0.1.x could be handled by rule #2, and so on.
It's really up to you how to set up rules and what they capture. Another way may be limiting devices by their MAC address, which is better, as unlike IP addresses, MAC addresses do not change.
Ahh that's a good point! So it seems setting a quota on the MAC address of the clients roof top radio may be easier?
They will have a roof top radio, then inside their house an access point. Regardless of the equipment beyond the CPE radio, the quota will apply from that point, correct?
The quota will apply to whatever MAC addresses you list a in rule, provided connections are made from that MAC address. So if your CPE radio connects directly to the PC with Bandwidth Manager, meaning there are only switches between (not routers or access points), then it should work.
However, if there are any routers or access points between the CPE radio and the PC with Bandwidth Manager, it's likely that they will substitute the radio's MAC address with their own.