Sarathlal N

Limit network bandwidth in Linux

Recently, I needed to reduce my network bandwidth in my system to do some automation testing using Selenium. Here is the solution for the purpose.

First we want to know the network interface which we want to limit bandwidth usage. We can use ifconfig or ip addr.

Here is the output of the ifconfig command in my system.

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 750202  bytes 109236649 (109.2 MB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 750202  bytes 109236649 (109.2 MB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlp0s20f3: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 10.0.0.30  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 10.0.0.255
        inet6 fe80::50ae:c446:f5ba:84d6  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether dc:21:48:b7:da:e5  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 1907587  bytes 1240898453 (1.2 GB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 143  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 1437275  bytes 654470151 (654.4 MB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

My active wireless interface is wlp0s20f3.

Next install wondershaper.

apt-get install wondershaper

Command to limit network bandwidth

wondershaper [-hcs] [-a <adapter>] [-d <rate>] [-u <rate>]
  1. -h : Display help
  2. -a : Set the adapter
  3. -d : Set maximum download rate (in Kbps) and/or
  4. -u : Set maximum upload rate (in Kbps)
  5. -p : Use the presets in /etc/systemd/wondershaper.conf
  6. -f : Use alternative preset file
  7. -c : Clear the limits from adapter
  8. -s : Show the current status of adapter

Example

wondershaper -a wlp0s20f3 -d 4048 -u 2024

Now the download rate will be set to 4Mbps & upload rate will be 2Mbps.

Command to view current status of network adaptor

wondershaper -sa wlp0s20f3

Command to clear the download or upload limits

wondershaper -ca wlp0s20f3

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