I noticed that when providing "latency" instead of "limit", tc utility adds burst size to the token buket's queue limit (q_tbf.c, line 215): lim = rate64*(double)latency/TIME_UNITS_PER_SEC + buffer;
This results in a bigger buffer than expected, yielding latency higher than requested. To show that the achieved latency is higher than expected, I configured 10kbps with 10kb burst and 1 second latency, and sent 30kb instantanously. (network configuration: host1----switch----host2) switch: tc qdisc add dev s1-eth2 root tbf rate 10kbps burst 10kb latency 1s host1: ping host2 -s 1500 -l 20 PING 10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2) 1500(1528) bytes of data. 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.287 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.018 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.007 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.007 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.006 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=0.006 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=78.6 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=236 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=393 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=551 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=709 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=867 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=1024 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=1181 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=1339 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=1497 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=17 ttl=64 time=1655 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=18 ttl=64 time=1812 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=21 ttl=64 time=982 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=22 ttl=64 time=140 ms 1508 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=23 ttl=64 time=0.057 ms ^C --- 10.0.0.2 ping statistics --- 23 packets transmitted, 21 received, 8% packet loss, time 3000ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.006/593.931/1812.417/611.926 ms, pipe 20 As you can see in icmp #18 - the latency peaked at 1.8 seconds even though i requested 1 second max. Proposed solution: I think that burst size should not be added to the lim parameter (q_tbf.c, line 215): lim = rate64*(double)latency/TIME_UNITS_PER_SEC; Is this sensible?