Cisco IOS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Setting the DSCP or TOS Field

Problem

You want the router to mark the DSCP or TOS field of an IP packet to affect its priority through the network.

Solution

The solution to this problem depends on the sort of traffic distinctions you want to make, as well the version of IOS you are running in your routers.

There must be something that defines the different types of traffic that you wish to prioritize. In general, the simpler the distinctions are to make, the better. This is because all of the tests take router resources and introduce processing delays. The most common rules for distinguishing between traffic types use the packet’s input interface and simple IP header information such as TCP port numbers. The following examples show how to set an IP Precedence value of immediate (2) for all FTP control traffic that arrives through the serial0/0 interface, and an IP Precedence of priority (1) for all FTP data traffic. This distinction is possible because FTP control traffic uses TCP port 21, and FTP data uses port 20.

The new method for configuring this uses class maps. Cisco first introduced this feature in IOS Version 12.0(5)T. This method first defines a class-map that specifies how the router will identify this type of traffic. It then defines a policy-map that actually makes the changes to the packet’s TOS field:

Router#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#access-list 101 permit any eq ftp any
Router(config)#access-list 101 ...