33.10. Limit network bandwidth for a Xen guest


In some environments it may be required to limit the network bandwidth available to certain guests. This can be used to implement basic Quality of Service on a host running multiple virtual machines. By default, the guest can use any bandwidth setting available which your physical network card supports. The physical network card must be mapped to one of virtual machine's virtual network interfaces. In Xen the “rate” parameter part of the VIF entries can throttle guests.
This list covers the variables
rate
The rate= option can be added to the VIF= entry in a virtual machine configuration file to limit a virtual machine's network bandwidth or specify a specific time interval for a time window.
time window
The time window is optional to the rate= option:
The default time window is 50ms.
A smaller time window will provide less burst transmission, however, the replenishment rate and latency will increase.
The default 50ms time window is a good balance between latency and throughput and in most cases will not require changing.
Examples of rate parameter values and uses.
rate=10Mb/s
Limit the outgoing network traffic from the guest to 10MB/s.
rate=250KB/s
Limit the outgoing network traffic from the guest to 250KB/s.
rate=10MB/s@50ms
Limit bandwidth to 10MB/s and provide the guest with a 50KB chunk every 50ms.
In the virtual machine configuration a sample VIF entry would look like the following:
vif = [ 'rate=10MB/s , mac=00:16:3e:7a:55:1c, bridge=xenbr1']
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
This rate entry would limit the virtual machine's interface to 10MB/s for outgoing traffic
Red Hat logoGithubredditYoutubeTwitter

Lernen

Testen, kaufen und verkaufen

Communitys

Über Red Hat Dokumentation

Wir helfen Red Hat Benutzern, mit unseren Produkten und Diensten innovativ zu sein und ihre Ziele zu erreichen – mit Inhalten, denen sie vertrauen können. Entdecken Sie unsere neuesten Updates.

Mehr Inklusion in Open Source

Red Hat hat sich verpflichtet, problematische Sprache in unserem Code, unserer Dokumentation und unseren Web-Eigenschaften zu ersetzen. Weitere Einzelheiten finden Sie in Red Hat Blog.

Über Red Hat

Wir liefern gehärtete Lösungen, die es Unternehmen leichter machen, plattform- und umgebungsübergreifend zu arbeiten, vom zentralen Rechenzentrum bis zum Netzwerkrand.

Theme

© 2026 Red Hat
Nach oben