How to share bandwidth equally between processes

bhe69 · 2025-10-06 21:23:10

Hello everyone,

ever since I switched to linux I noticed that a single process downloading a file will take up all available bandwidth (which is wanted), but leaves none for other processes. I cant remember I ever experienced something like this on windows.

For example while I download a file with pacman or wget, browsing with firefox is nearly impossible, as hardly any data is transferred from the servers.
The default setting of pacman (downloading 5 packages in parallel) sometimes even chokes itself, as pacman aborts, being not able to download further packages:

 linux-lts-6.12.48-1-x86_64                                                                138.2 MiB   963 KiB/s 02:27 [########################################################################] 100%
 Total ( 8/71)                                                                             329.0 MiB  2.24 MiB/s 02:27 [########################################################################] 100%
error: failed retrieving file 'webkitgtk-6.0-2.50.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst.sig' from geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds
error: failed retrieving file 'webkit2gtk-4.1-2.50.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst.sig' from geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds
warning: failed to retrieve some files
error: failed to commit transaction (failed to retrieve some files)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

Is there a setting to share the bandwidth between processes more equally? I'm aware I can limit the bandwidth of pacman/wget to a fixed value, but I'd rather want to use all bandwidth, but still give other processes the chance to download some data as well.

Thanks for your help!

seth · 2025-10-07 15:08:56

That's not normal behavior nor does it make a lot of sense.
Do you use some firewall that might perform process based traffic shaping?
Sure you're not just running into a slow mirror?
Check your system journal - the more likely scenario is that the network collapses under pressure (you might see disconnects, firmware crashes etc et pp)

bhe69 · 2025-10-08 20:43:01

No, I'm not using a firewall and the mirrors are pretty fast. The transfer speed of 2.24 MiB/s is approximately the bandwidth my internet provider promises.

While I downloaded the kernel package today I checked the system log, The only message I could find during this time was:

perf: interrupt took too long (2532 > 2500), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 78900

seth · 2025-10-08 21:45:37

Please trigger such event (connection breakdown) and then post your complete system journal for the boot:

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

Arch Linux

#1 2025-10-06 21:23:10

How to share bandwidth equally between processes

#2 2025-10-07 15:08:56

Re: How to share bandwidth equally between processes

#3 2025-10-08 20:43:01

Re: How to share bandwidth equally between processes

#4 2025-10-08 21:45:37

Re: How to share bandwidth equally between processes

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