Increase throughput and reduced latency for Ubuntu Plex Media Server

This is a guide on how to Increase throughput and reduced latency for Linux Plex Media Server the BBR algorithm was created by google and when used by them they have up to 14% increase in throughput. In my person test I saw about a 10% decrease in ping or latency and 12% increase in throughput.

What is BBR?

BBR (“Bottleneck Bandwidth and Round-trip propagation time”) is a new congestion control algorithm developed at Google. Congestion control algorithms — running inside every computer, phone or tablet connected to a network — that decide how fast to send data.

Requirements

1. Linux kernel version 4.9 or above
2. CONFIG_TCP_CONG_BBR
3. CONFIG_NET_SCH_FQ

 On a Debian/Ubuntu Linux type the following grep command

grep 'CONFIG_TCP_CONG_BBR' /boot/config-$(uname -r)
grep 'CONFIG_NET_SCH_FQ' /boot/config-$(uname -r)

Optional (Search and install the latest stable version)

First lets fine the current Linux operating system, In this case Ubuntu 16.04.3

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
Release:	16.04
Codename:	xenial

Now lets find out the latest version of Linux kernel

apt-cache search linux-generic

Current Linux version at this time is listed below.

Linux-image-4.10.0-30-generic - Linux kernel image for version 4.10.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP

Now on to the installation Process

sudo apt-get install linux-image-4.10.0-30-generic

Block Kernel updates to prevent downgrade, This is for *REQUIRED* Servers on installed on 16.04 LTS or earlier LTS Versions.

sudo apt-mark hold linux-image-generic linux-headers-generic

Setup BBR congestion control

We are now ready to enable TCP BBR congestion control

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Add the following two lines to the end of the conf

net.core.default_qdisc=fq
net.ipv4.tcp_congestion_control=bbr

Control + X to close and Y to save. Once saved now we can Reboot and enjoy!

sudo reboot