If the business warrants it, you might want to look at techniques to save bandwidth overall such as running a Windows Server Update Service internally (ports repo for FreeBSD, yum repo if you have linux) so you only have to download updates once and all internal systems can get their updates from there.
as for pfSense, I would definitely put traffic shaping on there as well as perhaps installing the squid package to cache other web content. The more you can cache internally, the less you have to tax the internet connection. From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 03:43:31 -0400 Subject: RE: [pfSense Support] RE: T1 Saturating - Windows update kills the connection... ?? It did not happen with the other connection. But the previous firewall didn’t allow me to look at nice graphs and see it maxing out, etc… It just worked. It was twice as fast as you said. I hooked up the old connection and it is not dying with the 4 windows updates… in fact, it’s humming along… Unfortunately, I don’t have the resources at this time of night to try to get 8 or 12 PC’s running Windows update so I can try to max out the connection (since it’s twice the speed as the T1, I need at least twice the computers) to see what happens. Yes, it is 1.5/1.5… I’m not sure how I can make a call that the T1 is at fault exactly. I see the traffic flowing and it’s capping at 1.5Mbit… if I cancel window update, it dropped way back down…. SpeedTest.net indicates 1.5/1.5… I’m kind of stuck… Chuck From: Jeppe Øland [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 3:28 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [pfSense Support] RE: T1 Saturating - Windows update kills the connection... ?? During this new firewall installation, someone decided to run Windows Updates on a four computers. Previously, this would not have choked the network, but with the new firewall (and new T1), it is choking it. Choking it dead. The four machines appear to contend for connectivity but after a few minutes, a couple of them just stall, one slows way down to a crawl and another stills keeps going (slower). Trying to browse the web on another computer is pretty much impossible. It's all bogged down. It didn't happen with the old connection right? (sure it was faster, but Microsofts servers are way faster than that so it shouldn't matter) Sounds like there is a problem with the new connection if you ask me. Is it a full duplex 1.5/1.5 connection? Regards, -Jeppe
