QOS(7)

🦋 QOS(7) — bestie's guide to Quality of Service specs 🦋

okay so this is the manual page for qos — the Quality of Service specification format, living its best life in the Miscellaneous section of the manual. Pull up a chair, grab a strawberry, we're doing ATM traffic specs together 💖

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✨ NAME ✨

qos — Quality of Service specification. That's it, that's the name, short and iconic 💅

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

text2qos and qos2text use the format described in this man page. And because every single standard ATM tool on Linux uses those functions to convert to or from the textual representation of QOS specifications, they expect them in the same format too. So like… this format is the format. Periodt ✨

🎀 the fundamentals 🎀

The most fundamental parameters are the traffic class and the AAL (ATM Adaption Layer) type.

• If the connection is bi-directional, both directions have the same traffic class and the same AAL type. No pick-and-choose, bestie, it's a package deal.
• The traffic class and the AAL type are the first elements (in any order) in a QOS specification.
• The traffic class is the only required element.
• If the AAL type is omitted, the application will provide a default value.

The following traffic classes are recognized:

• ubr — Unassigned Bit Rate
• cbr — Constant Bit Rate
• abr — Available Bit Rate

The following AAL types are recognized:

• aal0 — ("raw ATM")
• aal5

If both the traffic class and the AAL type are specified, they are separated by a comma.

🧚 the full format 🧚

If more parameters are supplied, the traffic class and AAL type must be followed by a colon.

Traffic parameters can be specified independently for the transmit and the receive direction. Their parameter lists are prefixed with tx: and rx:, respectively.

• If both parameter lists are present, the tx: list must precede the rx: list. Order matters, no cap.
• If a parameter is equal for both directions, it can be placed in a common parameter list (without prefix).

The general format is as follows:

class_and_aal:common_list,tx:list,rx:list

Each list consists of elements specifying a parameter. Elements can appear in any order and they are separated with commas.

The following elements are recognized:

• pcr=rate — is a synonym for max_pcr=rate
• max_pcr=rate — The upper limit for the peak cell rate to assign. If omitted, any rate up to link speed may be chosen.
• min_pcr=rate — The lower limit for the peak cell rate to assign. If omitted, any rate above zero can be chosen.
• sdu=size — is a synonym for max_sdu=size
• max_sdu=size — The size of the largest packet that may be sent or received. If omitted, a context-dependent default value is used.

💜 the values 💜

Values are specified as follows:

• rate — The (decimal) rate, optionally followed by a unit. The unit may be prefixed with one of the multipliers k, M, or G, meaning 1'000, 1'000'000, or 1'000'000'000, respectively. The units cps (cells per second) and bps (bits per second) are recognized. If multiplier and unit are omitted, cells per second are assumed. Note that the rate is always converted to cells per second, so rounding errors may occur when specifying the rate in bits per second. Rates measured in bits per second are considered to be user data rates, i.e. one cell corresponds to 384 bits. The rate can be a fractional value, e.g. 1.3Mbps. It is an error to specify only a multiplier without a unit. Link speed can be indicated by using the keyword max as the rate.
• size — The (decimal) number of bytes.

🌸 the none situation 🌸

The tx: or rx: lists may also just contain the single element none, which indicates that the corresponding direction is not used.

⚠️ It is an error to specify none for both directions. Pick a lane, bestie 😭

🫶 the rules of the road 🫶

Note that commas must never follow colons or other commas. Also, whitespace is not allowed inside a QOS specification.

QOS specifications are case-insensitive. Slay ✨

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

Each of the following lines contains a valid QOS specification:

ubr
ubr:pcr=100kbps
cbr,aal0:pcr=64kbps
CBR:max_pcr=11Mbps,min_pcr=10mbps,sdu=8192
aal5,ubr:tx:none
cbr:tx:pcr=30000,rx:none

The following specificiations are equivalent:

CBR,AAL5:PCR=48Mbps
cbr,aal5:max_pcr=125000
cbr,aal5:tx:pcr=125kcps,rx:pcr=125kcps

three different fits, same exact energy 💅

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💖 AUTHOR 💖

Werner Almesberger, EPFL LRC/ICA <werner.almesberger@epfl.ch>

Give him his flowers, he wrote the whole thing 🌸

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and that's the whole vibe check, bestie — this page came from the Linux manual set, dated April 20, 2000, and it's giving iconic early-2000s ATM energy. go spec those traffic classes, you absolute main character 👑💜