Traffic prioritization and QoS management

The UniFi MCP Server exposes traffic management capabilities that let your AI assistant analyze and shape network traffic. You can create routing policies to prioritize or limit specific traffic types, inspect bandwidth usage across applications and categories using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) statistics, and manage traffic flows in real time.

QoS profile management (create/update/delete dedicated QoS profiles) is not available via the UniFi API. The traffic routing tools described here use the supported /rest/routing endpoint. For bandwidth management, use traffic routes with the shape action.

What you can do

Traffic routes

Create routing policies to allow, deny, mark, or shape specific traffic flows.

Bandwidth shaping

Apply bandwidth limits to specific traffic using the shape action.

DSCP marking

Mark packets with DSCP values for downstream QoS enforcement.

DPI analytics

Identify top bandwidth applications and per-client usage across your network.

Traffic routes

Traffic routes are policies that match specific traffic flows and apply an action: allow, deny, mark (DSCP), or shape (bandwidth limit). Routes are evaluated in priority order—lower priority numbers run first. Example prompts:

“Show all traffic routing policies”
“Create a rule to prioritize video conferencing traffic”
“Limit streaming traffic to 50 Mbps”

List traffic routes

result = await mcp.call_tool("list_traffic_routes", {
    "site_id": "default"
})

Response:

[
  {
    "id": "route-001",
    "name": "Prioritize VoIP",
    "action": "mark",
    "dscp_marking": 46,
    "priority": 10,
    "enabled": true,
    "match_criteria": {
      "destination_port": 5060,
      "protocol": "udp"
    }
  }
]

Create a traffic route

All route creation requires confirm=True. Use dry_run=True to validate first.

Traffic routes that deny traffic or apply strict bandwidth limits can impact network performance. Always preview with dry_run=True before applying.

Example: prioritize video conferencing with DSCP marking

# Preview first
preview = await mcp.call_tool("create_traffic_route", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "name": "Prioritize Video Conferencing",
    "action": "mark",
    "dscp_marking": 46,
    "destination_port": 443,
    "protocol": "tcp",
    "priority": 10,
    "dry_run": True
})

# Apply
result = await mcp.call_tool("create_traffic_route", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "name": "Prioritize Video Conferencing",
    "action": "mark",
    "dscp_marking": 46,
    "destination_port": 443,
    "protocol": "tcp",
    "priority": 10,
    "confirm": True
})

Example: limit streaming traffic

result = await mcp.call_tool("create_traffic_route", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "name": "Limit Streaming",
    "action": "shape",
    "bandwidth_limit_kbps": 51200,
    "vlan_id": 100,
    "priority": 50,
    "confirm": True
})

Traffic route parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
`name`	string	Descriptive policy name
`action`	string	`allow`, `deny`, `mark`, or `shape`
`source_ip`	string	Source IP or CIDR (optional)
`destination_ip`	string	Destination IP or CIDR (optional)
`source_port`	integer	Source port 1–65535 (optional)
`destination_port`	integer	Destination port 1–65535 (optional)
`protocol`	string	`tcp`, `udp`, `icmp`, or `all`
`vlan_id`	integer	VLAN ID 1–4094 (optional)
`dscp_marking`	integer	DSCP value 0–63 (for `mark` action)
`bandwidth_limit_kbps`	integer	Bandwidth limit in kbps (for `shape` action)
`priority`	integer	Route priority 1–1000 (lower = higher priority)
`enabled`	boolean	Enable route immediately
`confirm`	boolean	Required: must be `true` to execute
`dry_run`	boolean	Preview without applying

DSCP values reference

DSCP value	Traffic class	Typical use
`46`	Expedited Forwarding (EF)	VoIP, real-time audio
`34`	Assured Forwarding (AF41)	Video conferencing
`26`	Assured Forwarding (AF31)	Streaming video
`0`	Best Effort	Default traffic

Update a traffic route

result = await mcp.call_tool("update_traffic_route", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "route_id": "route-001",
    "enabled": False,
    "confirm": True
})

Delete a traffic route

result = await mcp.call_tool("delete_traffic_route", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "route_id": "route-001",
    "confirm": True
})

DPI statistics

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) statistics show you which applications and categories are consuming the most bandwidth on your network. This is a read-only capability—no confirmation is required. Example prompts:

“What are the top 10 applications by bandwidth in the last 24 hours?”
“Show bandwidth usage by category”
“How much bandwidth is Netflix using today?”
“What is device aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:01 using the network for?”

Site-wide DPI statistics

result = await mcp.call_tool("get_dpi_statistics", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "time_range": "24h"
})

Response:

{
  "site_id": "default",
  "time_range": "24h",
  "applications": [
    {
      "application": "Netflix",
      "category": "Streaming",
      "tx_bytes": 5120000000,
      "rx_bytes": 10240000000,
      "total_bytes": 15360000000
    },
    {
      "application": "YouTube",
      "category": "Streaming",
      "tx_bytes": 2560000000,
      "rx_bytes": 7680000000,
      "total_bytes": 10240000000
    }
  ],
  "categories": [
    {
      "category": "Streaming",
      "total_bytes": 25600000000,
      "application_count": 2
    }
  ],
  "total_applications": 15,
  "total_categories": 6
}

Supported time ranges: 1h, 6h, 12h, 24h, 7d, 30d

Top applications by bandwidth

Use list_top_applications to quickly identify the highest-bandwidth applications. Example prompt: “Show me the top 5 bandwidth hogs this week”

result = await mcp.call_tool("list_top_applications", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "limit": 5,
    "time_range": "7d"
})

Response:

[
  {
    "application": "Netflix",
    "category": "Streaming",
    "tx_bytes": 35840000000,
    "rx_bytes": 71680000000,
    "total_bytes": 107520000000
  },
  {
    "application": "YouTube",
    "category": "Streaming",
    "tx_bytes": 17920000000,
    "rx_bytes": 53760000000,
    "total_bytes": 71680000000
  }
]

Per-client DPI statistics

See what a specific client is doing on the network by their MAC address. Example prompt: “What applications is the laptop at aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:01 using?”

result = await mcp.call_tool("get_client_dpi", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "client_mac": "aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:01",
    "time_range": "24h"
})

Response:

{
  "site_id": "default",
  "client_mac": "aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:01",
  "time_range": "24h",
  "total_tx_bytes": 512000000,
  "total_rx_bytes": 1024000000,
  "total_bytes": 1536000000,
  "applications": [
    {
      "application": "Netflix",
      "category": "Streaming",
      "total_bytes": 1024000000,
      "percentage": 66.67
    },
    {
      "application": "Zoom",
      "category": "Video Conferencing",
      "total_bytes": 256000000,
      "percentage": 16.67
    }
  ],
  "total_applications": 8
}

Example: identifying and shaping heavy bandwidth users

This workflow shows how to use DPI data to identify heavy users and then apply a traffic shaping policy.

Find top applications

top_apps = await mcp.call_tool("list_top_applications", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "limit": 10,
    "time_range": "24h"
})
# Streaming is 80% of traffic

Check per-client usage

client_dpi = await mcp.call_tool("get_client_dpi", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "client_mac": "aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:01",
    "time_range": "24h"
})

Apply bandwidth limit on guest VLAN

result = await mcp.call_tool("create_traffic_route", {
    "site_id": "default",
    "name": "Guest Streaming Limit",
    "action": "shape",
    "bandwidth_limit_kbps": 25600,
    "vlan_id": 100,
    "priority": 100,
    "confirm": True
})

Safety summary

Operation	Requires `confirm=True`	Read-only
List routes	No	Yes
Get DPI statistics	No	Yes
List top applications	No	Yes
Get client DPI	No	Yes
Create route	Yes	No
Update route	Yes	No
Delete route	Yes	No

Getting Started

Installation

MCP Client Setup

Features

Advanced

Traffic prioritization and QoS management

What you can do

Traffic routes

Bandwidth shaping

DSCP marking

DPI analytics

Traffic routes

List traffic routes

Create a traffic route

Traffic route parameters

DSCP values reference

Update a traffic route

Delete a traffic route

DPI statistics

Site-wide DPI statistics

Top applications by bandwidth

Per-client DPI statistics

Example: identifying and shaping heavy bandwidth users

Safety summary

​What you can do

Traffic routes

Bandwidth shaping

DSCP marking

DPI analytics

​Traffic routes

​List traffic routes

​Create a traffic route

​Traffic route parameters

​DSCP values reference

​Update a traffic route

​Delete a traffic route

​DPI statistics

​Site-wide DPI statistics

​Top applications by bandwidth

​Per-client DPI statistics

​Example: identifying and shaping heavy bandwidth users

​Safety summary

What you can do

Traffic routes

List traffic routes

Create a traffic route

Traffic route parameters

DSCP values reference

Update a traffic route

Delete a traffic route

DPI statistics

Site-wide DPI statistics

Top applications by bandwidth

Per-client DPI statistics

Example: identifying and shaping heavy bandwidth users

Safety summary