[clue] [tech] Calculate total bandwidth usage for an interface using rrdtool

[Jim Ockers]

Hi everyone,

I know it's been a while but I thought I would close the loop on this.  
I was asking if anyone knew a good and easy bandwidth tracking utility 
that we could use to make sure our cell phone modems don't exceed the 
data plan allotment.

I figured out an easy way to do this with vnstat.  Vnstat provides 
command line utility, a daemon, and a back-end tracking database.  I had 
to wrap it with scripts protecting it from PPP interfaces that go up & 
down a lot.  One nice thing about vnstat is that it lets you specify the 
total maximum bandwidth an interface SHOULD have, that helps to avoid 
bad data causing massive apparent bandwidth spikes that didn't actually 
happen.

Just for the record,
Jim
-- 
Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: http://www.ockers.net/msi.html


Charles W Downing wrote:
>
>
> On 06/10/2011 12:06 PM, Jim Ockers wrote:
>> Hi CLUEbies,
>>
>> Well as you know I send an e-mail to this list whenever I'm kind of 
>> stumped.  I have an OpenWRT based Linux system with a 3G phone 
>> interface.  Due to the marketecture of 3G data plans, I need to try 
>> to make sure this device does not exceed its monthly bandwidth 
>> allotment per our data plan, so we don't get a $60,000 bill, or 
>> something.  What I was thinking was, since we are allowed 5GB in a 
>> month, that I would figure out the total bandwidth used in the last 3 
>> weeks, and if the total bandwidth was 3/4 * 5GB then I would start 
>> throttling down the available bandwidth on the interface using tc and 
>> traffic shaping.
>>
>> This seems like it should not be too hard to do.
> Just an off the wall thought.  Does your provider keep a running total 
> of your usage during a billing period?  If so, it seems that you could 
> make a cron job to do the searching, leaving you to script the local 
> stuff.  BTW, I just checked and Verizon Wireless keeps a running total 
> of my/our usage to the nearest kB.
>
>> Thanks for any CLUEs,
>> Jim
>> -- 
>> Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
>> Contact info: http://www.ockers.net/msi.htm
>>
>>     
>>
>>
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>
> -- 
> Chuck Downing
> Highlands Ranch, Colorado USA 
>   
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>
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