I had an old Dell Optiplex 790 (added dual Intel PCI-E gigabit NIC) sitting around that I decided to make into a router using Ubuntu 16.04 and the guide found here https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/04/the-ars-guide-to-building-a-linux-router-from-scratch/ . To summarize the article, its just an Ubuntu desktop install (they used server edition) with forwarding enabled and Iptables for NAT and security. Everything went fine and it does route traffic, but when running tests on DSL reports I can see that I have an excessive amount of bufferbloat (1800+ ms) that seriously effects my download speeds. I get 60Mbps (I live in a small town), but within two or three seconds the buffer has filled up and the speeds take a dive to 6 Mbps.
My question is, what settings can I change in the Ubuntu Desktop Kernel to reduce or eliminate this problem. I was using a TP-Link wireless router before this that didn't have this problem so I know the issue is with the router and not the connection. All the ping tests I've run come back as A+ also so, again, the issue seems to be in the router and its lack of congestion control mechanisms/settings.
The machine Ars used was less powerful than this box, but their tests showed a lot better performance than what I am getting. I would also be interested to hear any other ideas regarding how i could improve the routers performance.
: Box is using 128GB SSD with additional 1TB HDD. As to using a distro designed for a router, Ars tested several including pfsense and dd-wrt. They found that Ubuntu performed better in almost every case. Ubuntu works. It just requires a little tuning to do so.
