On the filter rule, you have an action which is “FastTrack connection”. When you use this action, then FastTracked packets bypass firewall, connection tracking, simple queues, queue tree with parent=global, ip traffic-flow (restriction removed in 6.33), IP accounting, IPSec, hotspot universal client and VRF assignment. So, it is up to administrator to make sure FastTrack does not interfere with other configuration.

As an example, MikroTik has tested FastTrack on RB20211 using Bandwidth Test with a single TCP stream, and the result was as the following:

[mepr-show rules=”319″ unauth=”message”]

You can see clearly, the bandwidth has almost doubled, and the CPU was much less. That’s because when you enabled the FastTrack on packets, then they aren’t checked anymore by the Firewall, QOS, etc.….

Let’s do a LAB to see the effect of the FastTrack connection.

LAB: FastTrack

I am still on the same LAB scenario. My PC is still getting internet from R1.

I have decided to limit the bandwidth on my PC to 1M/1M. I will apply this QOS on the router to my PC cannot get more than 1 Mbps on upload and 1 Mbps on download:

So, I have made the simple queue to limit my PC to 1M/1M. Let’s check the internet speed on my PC now:

You can see clearly that my bandwidth is limited to 1M/1M as per the speedtest that I have done on my PC.

Now I want to use FastTrack so all connection made from my PC are having an action as FastTrack connection, this way all connections from my PC will not be limited anymore from the queue that I have created on the MikroTik router (remember FastTrack bypass the QOS queuing).

Let’s check what is my PC IP address:

Now I know my PC IP address, I want to mark all connections coming from that IP address. For this I will using the mangle rule.

Now that I have marked the connections that are coming from my PC and I gave the mark name as “PC-Connections”, it is time to apply the FastTrack to those connections. Let’s do it:

Let me explain what I have done. I have said that all traffic passing via the router to the internet and coming from my PC (having PC-connections), then make them as a “FastTrack Connection”.

Now that this has been applied, I want to see if my PC is still limited to 1Mbps on upload and 1Mbps on download as per the simple queue that I have already created.

Let’s do the speedtest and check:

Aha ???? – my PC has much bigger download and upload now. Actually, my PC is not getting limited anymore by the simple queue because all its connections are now FastTracked.

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