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icommunity
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Prioritizing Skype - How to?

Fri Sep 30, 2005 3:10 am

I've been trying to prioritze skype but still with no real success so far. I've searched and browsed the forum but still haven't found a real solution. The problem is that skype uses random port numbers and it's a p2p traffic, so mangling and shaping its traffic by port number or by IP don't seem to be the right solution.

Similar issue was discussed in detail in another thread about blocking skype by some one using satellite connection in Africa. But some of proposed approaches were outside of what can be done with Mikrotik e.g. by identifying its extra large packet size etc. I'm more interested in how you guys currently do it. Can any one give me some clues how to prioritize skype, fully or partially?

Thanks!
 
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lastguru
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Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:13 pm

actually you can in 2.9 check packet size and connection size. don't know whether it will help to identify skype connection, though.
 
sten
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Re: Prioritizing Skype - How to?

Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:27 pm

Similar issue was discussed in detail in another thread about blocking skype by some one using satellite connection in Africa. But some of proposed approaches were outside of what can be done with Mikrotik e.g. by identifying its extra large packet size etc. I'm more interested in how you guys currently do it. Can any one give me some clues how to prioritize skype, fully or partially?
My wife runs skype to call home to the US. I configured skype to use a given range of ports and marked those packets. I also gave udp a higher priority than tcp but the skype ports got highest.

Other than that you can get help identifying this traffic by googling. Some mentioned that one might mark traffic going to skype servers. Although this has a much higher administrative overhead it could be more accurate if you dont want to recommend settings to your users.
 
wildbill442
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Re: Prioritizing Skype - How to?

Fri Sep 30, 2005 7:31 pm

I've been trying to prioritze skype but still with no real success so far. I've searched and browsed the forum but still haven't found a real solution. The problem is that skype uses random port numbers and it's a p2p traffic, so mangling and shaping its traffic by port number or by IP don't seem to be the right solution.

Similar issue was discussed in detail in another thread about blocking skype by some one using satellite connection in Africa. But some of proposed approaches were outside of what can be done with Mikrotik e.g. by identifying its extra large packet size etc. I'm more interested in how you guys currently do it. Can any one give me some clues how to prioritize skype, fully or partially?

Thanks!
We use the Allot NetEnforcer for advanced protocol shaping and QoS.. Mikrotik works great for simple queues and the like, but you're right it can't identify new protocols dynamically...