I think it would be nice to be able to adjust the per-Linode speed cap in the control panel. Personally, I would like to raise the limit to 100MB/s, but such an option could also be useful if people would like to go the opposite way and have an even tighter bandwidth safety measure than the current 50Mb/s limit. There could be a maximum limit of 100Mb/s to avoid a single Linode being able to hog the host's connection (1Gb/s?).

I'm not sure how feasible this is, but as the speed cap can be adjusted on a per-Linode basis by support staff currently, I guess it should be technically possible to make it a control panel option?

It seems to me the odds of anyone (given human nature) putting such a setting anywhere other than at its highest level is awfully small, so perhaps not worth the development effort :-)

Increasing the default transmit limit is a separate question. Of course, whether the default limit is 100Mb/s or the current 50Mb/s seems fairly arbitrary in either case, though I like larger limits as much as anyone. I do think Linode's default of 50Mb/s is on the high end in the VPS space, at least from my looking around, particularly for the smaller configurations, as is their willingness to increase on a needs basis, so I'm not sure how much pressure there is on them at the moment to increase the default limit.

-- David

PS: If someone is trying to throttle for testing or other purposes, staying below the host limit is something you can already do inside your own guest with an appropriate queueing discipline, which doesn't even require a reboot to modify (unlike host changes).

Yes, you're probably right that most people would just set the cap to the highest possible speed, and most Linodians will be able to cap the speed themselves if needed, but still an option could be convenient

In my experience, most VPS services have a monthly bandwidth allocation without a speed cap, so that a VPS can use whatever the host connection (usually 100Mb/s but sometimes 1Gb/s) has available. Then there are some that have unmetered bandwidth but a low speed cap (<10Mb/s). Then there are a few (including Linode) that have a monthly allocation and a speed cap. Personally, I favour that final option when the host machine has a fat connection (eg. 1Gb/s), but I would like the cap to be 100Mb/s for the best of both, ie. a connection that's as fast as most other VPSs but that can't hog the host's connection.

In my case, I'm hosting fairly low volume download mirrors, so I'm not hitting the monthly limits but it would be nice for individual downloads to be as fast as possible. In my experience (of asking once ), Linode support will only increase the speed cap if you are consistently hitting the limit. That seems illogical to me, as it is those that consistently hit the limit that need the limit. So my thinking was that a control panel option would put the decision in the hands of those that are best placed to know their bandwidth usage patterns, ie. the users. But I wouldn't object to the cap simply being raised across-the-board to 100Mb/s instead

The speed cap isn't punitive, nor designed to prevent you from using as much bandwidth as you need. It's there as a safety mechanism, since you can blow through 200 GB in a hurry.

If you don't hit it, you probably don't need to raise it; if you do, then hopefully you know what you're doing.

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When I asked a few months ago, I was told that I need to be consistently hitting the 50Mb/s limit in order to have it raised. Is that no longer the case?

It is fairly easy to hit the limit, but not consistently and not for an extended period of time (it would have to be hit for 5 minutes straight to show as such in the bandwidth graph). It seems to me that it is those that are consistently hitting the limit that would be most at risk of going over their bandwidth allocation, making it questionable logic to have that as a requirement of increasing the limit, no?

If you're hitting the limit AND you know why you're hitting the limit AND you realize you only have x GB/month, you probably aren't going to shoot yourself in the foot with a higher limit.

If you're hitting the limit AND you have no idea why, you have a problem. That's why the limit is there.

Remember: you don't need root to open connections to remote hosts. Think dodgy PHP script, or a user account with a weak password.

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I can't speak to official policy, but I think that's still basically right, though "consistently" may be open to a little interpretation.

I, also a few months ago, was asked to demonstrate that I could utilize a higher limit, with yes, the Linode Manager graph being an acceptable indicator. In my case, I was going to use the higher bandwidth for occasional transfers, and had much lower regular traffic (so perhaps not that different from your scenario), so I had to initiate a transfer to exhibit saturation on the Linode Manager graph. I ran it long enough to show a clear marker in the graph, so burned a few extra GB of bandwidth allotment that month.


If you don't regularly, or can't on demand, show such saturation (I'm not sure I'd consider 5 minutes "extended"), then it seems to me that actually raising the limit would have modest benefit, while should it be utilized, it would be, sort of by definition, due to atypical patterns that might be able to cause more harm with the higher thresholds.

Even shorter transfers can create significant spikes in the graph, but you're right that to show saturation you'll have to hold a transfer for a bit longer than the averaging interval. I think that's a relatively modest threshold to use, but can see where that's debatable.

If you really do have usage patterns where transfers are always below 5 minutes, yet could fully utilize a higher limit, I'd probably try taking it up with support again with appropriate supporting evidence to use instead of the Linode Manager graph. When I was dealing with them, they seemed to just want a clear indication that I could utilize the higher threshold, and I suspect they're smart enough to appreciate different forms of "utilize". The answer might still be no, but it couldn't hurt to try, particularly if you do your homework to make a strong case with your own data and type of utilization.

-- David

Yes, after explaining the situation, the support staff agreed to raise the cap. Gotta love Linode!

This control panel option request is not so important to me now