iPad updates maxing out Internet link

[Alis_Klar]

Hi,

 

I called up our ISP to see why our Internet was crawling at 4Mb/s down.

 

They said it was due to Apple Store traffic from multiple devices.

 

They said its quite common for this to happen where multiple iPads try to download an update at the same time and as our Wi-Fi is very good it maxes out the 100mb internet link for half and hour or so.

 

Is there any way to tackle this other than implementing an Apple Caching server?

Can the updates be scheduled out of hours with MDM?  We have Mosyle.

[sideone]

Could you throttle the WiFi connections for iPads?

[Jawloms]

We had this a few years ago with Mac Minis. Our ISP did some wizardry on a specific IP range within our scope to limit their bandwidth, and then we made sure the Macs got IPs within that range. Problem went away.

[psydii]

Apple Cache Service (a feature of macos) solves this. Make sure the iPads can "see" the Mac on which it is running.

 

Intro to content caching – Apple Support (UK)

[DalekSec]

43 minutes ago, Alis_Klar said:

 

Is there any way to tackle this other than implementing an Apple Caching server?

 

Whats wrong with the caching server? quick and easy to setup and fixes the issue

[Bird97]

Caching server 100% the way to go was a really simple implementation for us helped a lot with the iPads

[DalekSec]

If you lack a Mac to do the caching server, a Hackintosh should still do the job IIRC

[DrCheese]

Just buy a Mac Mini - £408 from KRCS. 16gb of ram/256gb storage & M4.

 

https://cdn.krcs.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/KRCS_Schools_Price_List_17th_Oct_2025.pdf

 

 

[Alis_Klar]

I've seen that with Exa there can be issues with Apple Caching Server.  The school we are having the issue with is on Wave9 but rest of trust is Exa so may be moving to Exa.

I may test it out with an old MacBook lying around.  Don't want to purchase new MacMini and not be able to get it working.

[synaesthesia]

Can you do any rate limiting per IP on your firewall/filter? (Haven't used surfprotect in anger so unsure if it's possible)

[DalekSec]

2 hours ago, Alis_Klar said:

I may test it out with an old MacBook lying around.  Don't want to purchase new MacMini and not be able to get it working.

 

 

https://hackintosh.com/ 

[mavhc]

https://github.com/Qonfused/OSX-Hyper-V

[Alis_Klar]

3 hours ago, DrCheese said:

Just buy a Mac Mini - £408 from KRCS. 16gb of ram/256gb storage & M4.

 

https://cdn.krcs.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/KRCS_Schools_Price_List_17th_Oct_2025.pdf

 

 

How do you find the latest price list?  Not indexed on Google is it?

[DrCheese]

1 hour ago, Alis_Klar said:

How do you find the latest price list?  Not indexed on Google is it?

https://www.krcs.co.uk/education-pricing about half way down the page

[simpsonj]

What WiFi are you running? If it's Layer 7 aware, you might be able to limit the bandwidth using a firewall rule.

[imtoooldforthissh]

On 12/11/2025 at 12:11, Alis_Klar said:

I've seen that with Exa there can be issues with Apple Caching Server.  The school we are having the issue with is on Wave9 but rest of trust is Exa so may be moving to Exa.

I may test it out with an old MacBook lying around.  Don't want to purchase new MacMini and not be able to get it working.

 

I never did get this working with Exa and gave up in the end. We've switched over the Wave 9 since then and although we've now got a faster connection, I left the Mac Mini in place and caching worked first time and we've never had an issues with it since.