I have Debian 4.0 installed running as a gateway. Command line only.

How can I log the ethernet ports for bandwidth usage? Logging virtual
ports would be nice too.

Here's the situation. I set up OpenVPN to allow remote users to
connect but I think the internet connection is not sufficient for what
is needed. I want to periodically sample the networks interfaces for
a total bandwidth usage. For example every minute I want to sample
both eth0 and tun0.

What tools are out there that simply log the total bandwidth usage on a
port?

On Aug 20, 2007, at 2:34 PM, betty Snoop wrote:

> I have Debian 4.0 installed running as a gateway. Command line only.
>
> How can I log the ethernet ports for bandwidth usage? Logging virtual
> ports would be nice too.
>
> Here's the situation. I set up OpenVPN to allow remote users to
> connect but I think the internet connection is not sufficient for what
> is needed. I want to periodically sample the networks interfaces for
> a total bandwidth usage. For example every minute I want to sample
> both eth0 and tun0.
>
> What tools are out there that simply log the total bandwidth usage
> on a port?

There are several options.

MRTG and Cacti are the classic tools for this job. They work very
well for basic bandwidth usage logging, but you need to be running
snmpd, because that's how they get their data. Once you've set that
up, though, they can log anything they can get from SNMP, like memory
and CPU usage. An added advantage is that many network appliances
are also SNMP enabled, so you can log the load on your switches and
routers with the same tool. Cacti is sort of a swiss army knife for
SNMP monitoring and graphing -- I even use it for logging
temperatures, with an APC Environmental Monitoring Unit.

Another option is to run ntop. It will log traffic on one or more
network interfaces and give you a nice web interface with a breakdown
by host and by protocol. One caveat -- if you have very high data
rates (>10Mbit/second) ntop can begin to consume a lot of CPU as it
processes all those packets.

Finally, for real-time information, look at iftop. It gives a top-
style display of how your bandwidth is being used. Very slick.



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org