Topic: Proxy Accounting Management (Internet Traffic Accounting)

[Tino]

Hi everyone,

I was forced to start a new thread after I messed-up ( ) the previous thread about a Radius Server.

I am look for a way to record and manage all local ethernet Internet traffic. I am not sure if a Radius Server will be able to log local / LAN ehternet traffic that accesses the Internet through the proxy.

I would realy appreciate any help, especialy after I messed-up the previous thread.

Thanks to mbachmann from "krautland" (Germany) - I did read-up on that thread previously, I only find information about "ppp" connections, which points to external "dialup" connections.

Best Regards,

Tino

[mbachmann]

I'm sure someone said "iptraf" already? Recording all traffic will sum up to ridiculous amounts of data.

The SARG contrib monitors squid quite good.

An of course there is /var/log/squid/access.log and others.

[Tino]

hi mbachmann,

once again you come to my aid...

I have played with iptraf, and as you said not worth the effort. This is for IP activity and not a lot more than that.

SARG - installed and played with it, this is realy a nice to have for beginners or in an environment where you would only like to see where people are going and who they are (IP address only, no IP to name resolution done)

THE NEED:
From an Internet Accounting perspective, yes one would like to see who goes where and the amount of data transmitted.

From a Management perspective I would like to throttle certain connections and use quota policies on downloads and other Internet activities. (Activities must be managed by the data received / transmitted).


I have searched SourceForge and found a few utilities, but unfortunately it is either for other flavours of Linux, or it is so combersome to enventualy getting it installed, let alone the errors you are confronted with afterwards.

I will appretiate it if someone can point me into a direction (preferably the correct direction).

Regards,

Tino

[KegRaider]

Tino,

This is what i have also been looking for.  I have a number of customers that connect into our box via a wireless connection, and it would indeed be great to see who is using all of the bandwidth and throttle them (lol, no pun intended).

An accounting system like sarg, but just a little less.....obscure.

If i find one, i'll let you know!

Troy.

[mbachmann]

There is no one-for-all tool which will do that using SME. You will have to use a a many small tools and contribs for server manager like sysmon, mrtg,awstats, Quality of Service, Isoqlog, masq-manager, ip blocker and various other wich are scattered around here. Of course a few command line tools like logfiles viewer geeklog, top, ps, syslog daemon.

From the accounting perspective sarg + isoqlog or webalizer are sufficent. From the Mgmt. QoS, squidguard, masq-manager, spamfilter and the others are sufficient as log as your "managed by the data received / transmitted" comes into play. I would take what is there and simply wait if this data amount demand will be possible via a contrib in the future.

Actually it is not easy but possible. And it also depends on the skills you have. Me too would like to do certain things with SME, which I know are possible but it lacks me skills. I do, e.g. handle traffic here on a data amount basis, i do see nearly all the info you have described, the the overall limit is 5 GB but it is not broken down to single users.

[Tino]

TO Troy:

Hi Troy, thanks for you response.

I might contribute to your problem. If you search the forum for "Radius" or "FreeRadius", you will find a posting about a Radius Server solution that someone was using to audit their Wireless connections.

With your specific environment, where "external" users connect via W/F to your SME box, you should be able to use a Radius Server.


TO mbachmann:
Thank you for your reply...

Just thinking, if there are so many utils out there that can give most of the requirements that I am hoping for, should it not be possible to incorporate most of them into a single usable solution. (Under GPL, there should, somehow be Source Code, to enable a guru to mesh them all together? - On the otherhand where to find someone to do it.)

I don't know what your involve is with this new direction the contribs.org is heading in. I have seen a few posts by you, but still unable to place you within the structure. Reason for the remark is to find out from someone what the current direction is, the projects that are being launched, what the structures will be from:
1. Project Definition,
2. Key People (Who drives the project, who is responsible for keeping it together and ensuring that it does not loose momentum.
3. Who will be the source of information in respect of:-
* development restrictions, constraint, integration problems, etc
* Test Labs - who will install and test projects and supply information on the success or otherwise.
* Who will be prepared to put it onto a production server (I's love to take the risk on doing that.)

I don't want to use this thread to discuss matters reagarding the direction, it should be done under the correct thread. Reason for asking you here, is that very few others are interested in this thread. I promise that I will not touch the subject, within this thread, again.....promise.....