The Configure Rates page (accessible by clicking the Configure Rates button on the Traffic subtab of the Network tab of a Hardware Node) allows you to set up all the parameters that define how much bandwidth will be accessible to the Containers residing on the Node. Only the bandwidth for outgoing traffic is considered here.
The page is split into separate groups for each of the network adapters present on the Node and selected for being shaped on the
Configuring Interfaces
page
. If there is only one network adapter, it does not form any group. The following information is given and is customizable for each network adapter:
The
Bandwidth
field specifies the total bandwidth limit of the adapter (in Kbits per second). The most common Fast Ethernet cards have their traffic throughput limited at 100 Mbit/s, which would be indicated in the
Bandwidth
field as 102,400 Kbit/s. The value in this field corresponds strictly to the value of the
Bandwidth
field on the
Configuring Interfaces
page
. Thus, it is the second place where you can adjust the total bandwidth throughput of the given network interface.
The Virtuozzo Containers software can limit the network bandwidth not for the interface, but for each network class defined in the system and using the given interface. For this reason, the available network classes are enumerated under each of the existing interfaces. The Total rate field specifies the size of the so-called bandwidth pool for each network class being shaped for the given network adapter. The bandwidth from the pool can be borrowed by Containers when they need more bandwidth for communicating with hosts from the corresponding network class. It is used to limit the total available outgoing traffic Containers can consume; the Managing Network Shaping for Single Container subsection explains it in more detail. The default value for Network Class 1 on the first Ethernet adapter is 4096, which corresponds to the pool size of 4Mbit/s. Class 1 is always included in the shaping of all adapters, as this class matches all the network addresses not covered by other, user-defined classes. As to all the other classes, they can be excluded from the shaping if you clear the Enable shaping for this class checkbox, and included in the shaping if you select the checkbox.
Finally, the value of the
Rate guarantee
field amounts to the number of kilobits per second any Container is guaranteed to receive for outgoing traffic with the corresponding network class on the given Ethernet device. The default value is 8, which means that any Container is guaranteed to receive the bandwidth of at least 8 Kbits/s for sending data to Class 1 hosts on the first Ethernet device. This bandwidth is not the limit for a Container (though it is possible
to make it the limit
) - the Container is able to take the needed bandwidth from the bandwidth pool if it is not used by other Containers.