Cake was designed to run the same at line rate, with an external shaper, and/or with its own shaper. In the case where it is used as a htb or hfsc leaf qdisc, you have to run it in bandwidth unlimited mode (which is the default). Disallowing or ignoring usage of the “bandwidth” keyword should suffice when used as a leaf. We’ve communicated this info to mikrotik. I’d also kept saying the bandwidth param should be optional over here: http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/some-quick-comments-on-configuring-cake/152505/1 - I don’t know what the fuss is about!