I don't understand mailing lists, If I'm doing this wrong feel free to
correct.
 
Someone suggested I explore monowall for a need I have.  After reading and
trying for a while I'd like to make sure m0n0wall will eventually do what I
want before investing too much more time --
 
I want a transparent bridge that passes all traffic.  Within the bridge I
want to identify "bulk" traffic streams and lower their priority so they
don't hinder interactive streams.  However, when interactive loads are
light, I want bulk traffic to get all the leftover bandwidth.  To be
effective it needs to *quickly* (~ 1 second) throttle bulk connections when
interactive connections show up.  Otherwise users will feel the system being
sluggish.  Ideally I'd carve out a small protected minimum amount of
bandwidth so the connections don't die outright when the system has heavy
interactive loads.
 
There is a documentation topic I found: 
 
"Configure a filtered bridge"
http://m0n0.ch/wall/docbook-current/examples-filtered-bridge.html
 
which sorta suggests it might work.  Issues I see are:  
 
1) My WRAP board has 3 Ethernet jacks, but m0n0wall only shows LAN and WAN
on the GUI.  Could this be done with a 2 port board, or is there a way to
get monowall to see the 3rd port?
2) The filter rules shown seem to assume everything not allowed is blocked.
I want everything to pass, albeit some things slowly.
3) Does m0n0wall have a way to detect "bulk" traffic?  Possible approaches
are connections that have moved more than X bytes, or connections that have
averaged > Xbps over the last Y seconds.  Possibly others?
 
Am I on a rabbit trail, or can m0n0wall help me?
 
Corky
www.pvco.net