Bufferbloat pfSense: A Complete Guide

Fix bufferbloat pfSense using traffic shaping to reduce latency and boost performance. Our pfSense Support team is ready to assist you.

Bufferbloat pfSense: A Complete Guide

Bufferbloat can make fast internet feel slow by causing high latency during heavy usage. With pfSense, you can easily test for and fix bufferbloat using traffic shaping and queue management. This guide explains bufferbloat, how to detect it, and the steps to optimize your network performance.

What is Bufferbloat?

Bufferbloat is a phenomenon where routers or other network devices hold too much data in their buffers, causing high latency and slowing responses. Online gaming, video conferencing, and regular web browsing are all impacted by this delay. The latency brought on by excessive data queues is the problem, not a shortage of bandwidth. Even fast internet can feel slow and unresponsive as a result. You can take action to lessen lag, enhance performance, and have a more seamless online experience by being aware of bufferbloat.

Checking Internet for Bufferbloat

1. Check the jitter, ping, and speed of your internet by using websites such as Fast.com or Speedtest.net.
2. Use Waveform.com’s Bufferbloat Test to observe how ping varies under stress.

• Run a test on Fast.com, select “More details,” and compare the pings under load and idle.
• Check latency using the “Advanced” or “More” options on Speedtest.net.

3. Enter ping google.com in the terminal on your PC to observe how the ping varies as you upload or download something.
4. You most likely have bufferbloat if your ping increases significantly when you’re active.

Steps to Fix Bufferbloat on pfSense

Step 1: Check your current latency under load using a tool such as Waveform’s Bufferbloat Test.

Step 2: Create two limiters, one for uploading and one for downloading, by choosing Traffic Shaper from the Firewall menu. Select FQ_CoDel as the queue management and set bandwidth to roughly 95% of your actual speed.

Step 3: To manage traffic equitably, use FQ_CoDel to build a matched queue for each limiter. Step 4: To verify reduced latency, create a firewall match rule to use these queues, make your changes, and then rerun the bufferbloat test.

Fixing Download Speed Issues

Click New Limiter under Firewall → Traffic Shaper → Limiters on pfSense.

• Set the bandwidth to 95% of your test download speed (or 95% of your plan speed if the test indicates a higher speed), turn it on, and give it the name WAN_Down.

Add a brief description and set Mask and Schedule to None.

• Select FQ_CODEL for Scheduler, CoDel for Queue Management, set Queue Length to 1000, and verify ECN under Queue settings. Keep it.
• Click Add New Queue after choosing WAN_Down from the list.
• Turn it on, give it the name WAN_Down_Queue, select CoDel for Queue Management, leave Queue Length unfilled, check ECN, and set Mask to None.
• To finish, save and apply the changes.

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Fixing Upload Speed Issues

Go to Firewall → Traffic Shaper → Limiters and click New limiter.

• Turn on the limitation, give it the name WAN_Up, and configure the bandwidth to 95% of the contractual or tested upload speed using the appropriate bandwidth type. Schedule to None, mask to None, description as “Fix bufferbloat for upload,” queue length to 1000, ECN enabled, CoDel used for queue management using FQ_CODEL scheduler, and save.

Click WAN_Up → Add a new queue.

• Enable the limiter, give it the name WAN_Up_Queue, set the mask to None, write “Fix bufferbloat for upload,” use CoDel to manage the queue with an empty queue length, turn on ECN, save, and apply the modifications.

Applying the Bufferbloat Fix with Firewall Rules

1. Click Add to place the rule at the top after selecting Firewall, Rules, Floating.
2. Check Quick, leave Disabled unchecked, and set Action to Pass.
3. Choose Protocol as Any, Address Family as IPv4, Direction as Out, and Interface as WAN.
4. Choose Any as the Source and Destination.
5. Select your WAN gateway (WAN_DHCP, for instance) under Advanced; do not choose Default.
6. Choose WAN_Up_Queue for In and WAN_Down_Queue for Out in the In/Out pipe section.
7. Click “Apply Changes” and “Save.”

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Verifying the Fix

Check if bufferbloat has been resolved by conducting a speed test and pinging a reputable server. Bufferbloat is under control if ping times are continuously low (less than 15–25 ms) throughout the test. If there are noticeable spikes during upload or download, it’s still there and has to be adjusted.

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Conclusion

Bufferbloat pfSense setup is an effective way to manage network congestion and keep ping times low. You may optimize your internet connection by using limiters, queues, and traffic shaping. Test your network frequently to make sure the bufferbloat fix is still working.

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