I notice “everyone” including Mikrotik themselves says one need to use PCQ queues and queue-tree in a big hotspot setup.
However, it is not much info about how this works. I have found some guides, but these are shaping all customers equally.
We have a userbase of 1200, each with their own speed. (Most are identical, but AAA will send ratelimit values for each customer)
I can not find any way to get the customer “inside” the queue tree when he logs on. The user profile settings has a queue tab, but i cannot find this explained in the manual, and the queue tree is not visible there either…
Could someone clarify if PCQ is a manual - per customer- job or if it can be done automatically? Maybe even point me in the right direction? If PCQ is not assigned automatically, i really cant see it being useful, unless you shape everyone the same.
Since you already are looking, is what i am asking possible?
I am seeing something is being done with adress lists, but our customers have different speed profiles spread over multiple subnets, so they are not possible to be identified via adress-lists.
I have made some progress, but i don’t know if it is usable:
AAA sends a mikrotik-group. (For example “5mbit” and this is the user profile)
Added static mangle rules to jump to the hotspot chain. (pre and postrouting)
5mbit user profile creates dynamic mangle rules with packet mark 5mbit, (based on dst/src address (/32))
I made “master” top-queues in tree with no rates (want wire speed here)
I made pcq type queue 5mbitDL and 5mbitUL with rate and put masters as parents.
With this setup the user is shaped with 5mbit, and user number 2 also get 5mbit. They are not visible in simple queues. Looks like everyone in the user-group 5mbit will get 5mbit from this?
People with custom speeds, we will drop trough to the simple-queues, as they are few. They will not get a group-setting in AAA, only rate-limit.
I am still unclear on what to use on queue limits. I except 200 5mbit users. (I will also make similar queues and groups for 3mbit, DSL etc)
We expect no more than 1200 users total and approx 500mbit traffic. We will offload everything necessary. (DNS/DHCP/Captive login-page etc)