Netgear FVS318N User Manual

Create Bandwidth Profiles

Bandwidth profiles determine the way in which data is communicated with the hosts. The 
purpose of bandwidth profiles is to provide a method for allocating and limiting traffic, thus 
allocating LAN users sufficient bandwidth while preventing them from consuming all the 
bandwidth on your WAN link. A single bandwidth profile can be for both outbound and 
inbound traffic.

For outbound IPv4 traffic, you can apply bandwidth profiles on the WAN interface; for inbound 
IPv4 traffic, you can apply bandwidth profiles to a LAN interface. Bandwidth profiles do not 
apply to the DMZ interface, nor to IPv6 traffic.

When a new connection is established by a device, the device locates the firewall rule 
corresponding to the connection:

If the rule has a bandwidth profile specification, the device creates a bandwidth class in 
the kernel. 

If multiple connections correspond to the same firewall rule, the connections all share the 
same bandwidth class.

An exception occurs for an individual bandwidth profile if the classes are per-source IP 
address classes. The source IP address is the IP address of the first packet that is 
transmitted for the connection. So for outbound firewall rules, the source IP address is the 
LAN-side IP address; for inbound firewall rules, the source IP address is the WAN-side IP 
address. The class is deleted when all the connections that are using the class expire.

After you have created a bandwidth profile, you can assign the bandwidth profile to firewall 
rules on the following screens:

Add LAN WAN Outbound Services screen for IPv4 (see 

 on page 141)

Add LAN WAN Inbound Services screen for IPv4 (see 

 on page 144)



Select Security > Bandwidth Profiles. The Bandwidth Profiles screen displays. (The 
following figure shows some examples.)