Basic Bandwidth Monitoring Software

[Sully]

I have setup a neighborhood wireless network. I now have my wireless access point plugged directly in a port on the router/stateful firewall. I have assigned static PRIVATE IPs to all neighbors that correspond to specific MAC addresses. I also have a computer plugged into another port on the router/firewall that I could use to load the bandwidth monitoring software...if I only knew which to buy???

Can someone PLEASE provide me with some advice on bandwidth monitoring???? I dont want to use MRTG, because as I understand, it does NOT show true throughput. It shows an average throughput dependent on how ever often it polls.

This is my only requirement (I BEG FOR ASSISTANCE!!):
1. Have the ability to show IP/MAC pairings and total bandwidth consumed from month to month (i.e 1 Jan to 1 Feb).

As I stated above, I have assigned static IPs and have also obtained each and every MAC address that connects to the network. If I telnet into my router, I can do an ARP LIST and it will show the IP/MAC pairing, but obviously not their bandwidth running total for the month. I should say this, my router is SNMP capable and I have set the community name and password. I just dont know what to do from here????

Do I need a switch with a monitor port....do I need a $1000 program....can I download a script for free?!?!? If you are using something and it works...PLEASE HELP ME!!

These are my hopes (not mandatory):
1. This data is realtime and could possibly be made available to my neighbors via HTML.
2. Could possibly prompt me &/or the neighbor when they are approaching my 1Gig bandwidth limitation.

Thanks for any and all help!!
Sully

:confused:

[cc1091]

Someone gave me this link to YDI's Bandwidth Control Unit. I hope it is something that you will find useful.
http://www.ydi.com/products/bcu.php


I wish I knew all my neighbors well enought to share my internet connection for a fee. It would be cool to get someone like PayPal involved so that they could verify payment and send a signal to the verification server to allow access of a person registered for access through PayPal. Then they would credit your PayPal account with a percentage of that connection. Joltage nearly had the model right, but jumped the gun with the software (and refused to give up too much realtime information about the current users on a certain system). Too bad they never took up this ball and ran with it. Now they are history.

Heck, if I could get my neighbors to pay me 10 to 15 bucks a month for broadband access, I would be very happy.

[JimGeier]

Try contacting the vendor of your access points and see if they offer any monitoring software or functions for a small fee or free. Otherwise, consider wireless LAN management software from vendors such as Airwave, Wavelink, and Roving Planet. For additional information, refer to this tutorial (http://www.80211-planet.com/tutorials/article.php/2177931).

[bhechinger]

MRTG just takes SNMP info (or other info) and puts it into the RRDTool database. look at how MRTG collects its information, and instead of putting it in an RRDTool database, have it inserted into a Berkeley DB or PostgreSQL (or Oracle for that matter) database, and track useage without averaging things out.

if you need help with this, email me, and i'll see what i can do to help.

-brian

[bhechinger]

now we have to put up with spam on forums?

it's time to start killing spammers.

-brian

[gvenditto]

The spammer's account was killed. Thanks to whoever notified the admins.

Any time you see an inappropriate post, please use the option in the lower right "report this post to a moderator"

We will clean out the garbage as soon as someone notifies us.

[bhechinger]

yeah, i noticed that link right after i posted. i sent it in, but i'm not sure i can claim responsibility for being the force behind his getting killed. ;)

thanks for the tip!

-brian

[gvenditto]

We got about a dozen people reporting the spam.

It wasn't a person doing that, it was a software bot. They target message boards with their inane messages. Like most spam, it's a ridiculous waste of everyone's time since we can clean it all out in seconds.

[Corey Colwell]

You could set up a unix box to not only monitor and chart your users bandwidth but you could also limit/cap their through put as well...

If you share your internet with your neighbors are you planning on using a server of some kind?

what would stop someone from just getting a wireless pci card and just hooking up to you for free?