[bf1942] RFE: TOS bits in IP packets

Andrew Chen achen-bf1942 at divo.net
Fri Feb 21 04:12:33 EST 2003


Ah, it's good to see more big players are getting it together.  I've 
noticed that when I set the TOS bit on my packets, I see some routers just 
decide to completely drop them.  I'm not quite sure why, but I do know that 
they're misconfigured.  :|  Most of this has been found from my forays into 
VoIP in recent months.  :/

At 12:49 PM 2/19/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Actually you will find most larger and good backbones absolutely support
>it, from edge to edge.  I know for a fact UU and Sprint actively support
>it and run WRED on their ciscos.  We do as well.  And because of the
>massively increasing popularity of services like VoIP and VPNs, more and
>more backbones are upgrading to support it. Even within our AS (autonomous
>system) it would be nice to have it so I can better prioritise the traffic
>and provide a superior QoS.  Better to have it than to not.
>
>Excellent suggestion.
>
>-g8
>
>On Wed, 19 Feb 2003, Andrew A. Chen wrote:
>
> > This would be absolutely peachy, but most routers on the internet either
> > ignore the bits or do something stupid in response to the bits.  This is
> > why VoIP phones generally do not set the TOS bit.
> >
> > At 05:24 AM 2/19/2003, you wrote:
> > >Not sure if this is already done, but it would be nice if the TOS bits
> > >in
> > >the IP packets were set to "Minimize-Delay". One can of course use
> > >iptables
> > >to do this but it would be nice if the app did it. (Examples of other
> > >apps
> > >that do this are telnet and ssh.) These bits are used by routers to
> > >prioritize traffic, allowing interactive traffic (and what's more
> > >interactive than games?) to go to the front of the queue.
> >




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