On Tue, 2013-09-03 at 11:13 +1200, Andrew Sands wrote: > Greetings, > > Any thoughts on ways to monitor internet usage (bandwidth, data usage) > as a comparison to what my ISP tells me I'm using? > Is there a more time efficient way to get usage statistics than logging > onto a web page? > > What are people on the list doing or not doing for their individual > circumstances. > > Sent from my Ubuntu Linux desktop machine behind pfsense box (to keep it > relevant). > > regards, > > Andrew
Well, to some extent, it depends on what hardware you've got. I have an ancient d-link adsl router* that allows me to ssh into it, so I've got a quick bash/expect script that allows me to extract TX/RX byte counts, which I plug into munin. This gives me some idea of the traffic I think I'm using. If you're scouring the internet like Nick did, then you can end up with a nice gigabit router that you can then interrogate on a port by port basis using snmp. This will at least give you some idea of which machine is using the bandwidth, and when, plus the Wireless traffic if you plug your AP into the switch as well. I use munin because I got it working years ago, and haven't moved on because I've seen no reason to do so. It may be a bit heavy on the processing side so beware where you run the server ( it need not be on a pfsense firewall, but a machine behind it instead if you have one on 7x24... there's no need for the monitored server to be local at all: my server monitors from here to Montreal to Dublin! ). It also doesn't save totals, you'd need a simple script to do that. As i have a NATed ADSL connection, and web traffic is pretty well protected by transparent squid / squidguard and mail (SENDMAIL!) protected in and out by clamav / spamassassin / RBLs there's really not much point having any kind of dedicated hardware firewall... you should see the electricity bill without one! Steve *I've replaced it 3 times, and all it's successors are dead. It does more than Voda can offer ( ADSL2+ ), and I regularly see 1.4MB/s download speeds. Sadly, next door can get VDSL, but not me. I am now using a separate AP to get 11n support - the inbuilt wireless has got slower and slower. -- Steve Holdoway BSc(Hons) MIITP > > http://www.greengecko.co.nz > Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveholdoway > Skype: sholdowa _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
