[OFB Cafe] Monitoring network traffic

[Rick Bowers]

At Wednesday 9/17/2008 17:10, you wrote:
>Any Linux system keeps a traffic log on a per interface basis.  On 32
>bit systems, these counters roll over at 2 GiB, but on 64 bit systems
>can go pretty high:
>
>           RX packets:16070432954 errors:32 dropped:2158 overruns:0 frame:32
>           TX packets:20705025673 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
>           RX bytes:8678293391038 (7.8 TiB)  TX bytes:23354712671929 
> (21.2 TiB)
>
>The downside of this counter is that it gets reset on reboot, and
>can't practically be reset any other way (you have to unload the
>interface driver module to do it), but I've seen people who toss that
>count into a file every night at the same point and come away with
>daily statistics by simply subtracting the previous night's count.
>
>-Fred

So, I could setup my server in fire wall mode and track the counters. 
I assume I only need the RX bytes: and TX bytes:

Where do these counters live (what command did you type to get this 
display)? Do you have any scripts to capture the data? I assume I'd 
run a cron job nightly.

What happens when the counter reaches 2GB (my system is 
32-bit)?  Does it roll over to zero? So I'd need to accommodate that as well.

~Rick


>On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Rick Bowers <rwbowers at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Effective October 1, Comcast will be limiting customers to
> > 250GB/month of data. They say they will "reprimand" a user after the
> > first offence and cut them off for the second offense -- possibly for
> > 6 - 9 months.
> >
> > Since I am a Comcast customer, and I work mostly from home, I would
> > like to monitor my usage. Comcast says they have no tools.
> >
> > I'm pretty sure i don't use anywhere close to 250GB/month but I'd
> > like to know for sure. I use Vonage for my phone and use 30 - 50
> > hours per month. I'm often doing demos, or watching demos, using Live
> > Meeting and other web-based services. I also need to transfer large
> > files occasionally.
> >
> > I've done some Googling and have found a few applications that
> > monitor network traffic. But they run on a single server.
> >
> > I have two Windows machines (a desktop and a laptop), a linux server
> > for my mail/web/FTP and a couple of TiVos. I need something that,
> > maybe, sits in front of everything.
> >
> > My web/mail/FTP server can also act as a fire wall. It's running SME
> > Server (formerly e-smith) so perhaps I could run something on that.
> >
> > Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
> >
> > ~Rick
> >
> >
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