SNMP on OSX ?
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From: JF Mezei on 8 May 2010 23:43 This past week, Canada has lost access to unfettered internet. The government is to allow the Telco to dictate the terms of service of its competitors and limit how much bandwidth are are allowed every month (in order to protect its new IPTV legacy TV distribution service). As a result, i will need to monitor my data transfer volume at the router/switch/modem levels. Out of the box, does anyone know what SNMP client tools exist with OS-X and/or OS-X Server ? In other words, if I need to query a router once a day at midnight to get the volume of data on an interface, are there (command line) tools already installed on my machines to do this ?
From: Tim McNamara on 9 May 2010 15:18 In article <4be62f4b$0$1600$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot(a)vaxination.ca> wrote: > This past week, Canada has lost access to unfettered internet. The > government is to allow the Telco to dictate the terms of service of > its competitors and limit how much bandwidth are are allowed every > month (in order to protect its new IPTV legacy TV distribution > service). > > As a result, i will need to monitor my data transfer volume at the > router/switch/modem levels. > > Out of the box, does anyone know what SNMP client tools exist with > OS-X and/or OS-X Server ? > > In other words, if I need to query a router once a day at midnight to > get the volume of data on an interface, are there (command line) > tools already installed on my machines to do this ? Try "man snmpd" in Terminal.
From: Barry Margolin on 10 May 2010 02:30 In article <timmcn-064DCC.14180309052010(a)news-1.mpls.iphouse.net>, Tim McNamara <timmcn(a)bitstream.net> wrote: > In article <4be62f4b$0$1600$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>, > JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot(a)vaxination.ca> wrote: > > > This past week, Canada has lost access to unfettered internet. The > > government is to allow the Telco to dictate the terms of service of > > its competitors and limit how much bandwidth are are allowed every > > month (in order to protect its new IPTV legacy TV distribution > > service). > > > > As a result, i will need to monitor my data transfer volume at the > > router/switch/modem levels. > > > > Out of the box, does anyone know what SNMP client tools exist with > > OS-X and/or OS-X Server ? > > > > In other words, if I need to query a router once a day at midnight to > > get the volume of data on an interface, are there (command line) > > tools already installed on my machines to do this ? > > Try "man snmpd" in Terminal. That's a server, he asked about client tools. Try "ls /usr/bin/snmp*" and you'll see that it comes with the full complement of CLI SNMP clients. -- Barry Margolin, barmar(a)alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
From: David Empson on 10 May 2010 04:04 JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot(a)vaxination.ca> wrote: > This past week, Canada has lost access to unfettered internet. The > government is to allow the Telco to dictate the terms of service of its > competitors and limit how much bandwidth are are allowed every month (in > order to protect its new IPTV legacy TV distribution service). > > As a result, i will need to monitor my data transfer volume at the > router/switch/modem levels. > > Out of the box, does anyone know what SNMP client tools exist with OS-X > and/or OS-X Server ? > > In other words, if I need to query a router once a day at midnight to > get the volume of data on an interface, are there (command line) tools > already installed on my machines to do this ? An earlier subthread mentions command line tools, but I'm dubious whether you will actually get the information you need via SNMP. Given the number of octets tranmitted and received on the Internet interface on your router, you at least have a gross estimate of traffic, but that might not be what the ISP is counting. For example, on a PPPoE or other Ethernet connection, the interface counts will include Ethernet framing overhead, and this might be more than the ISP is counting, since it is only the IP header and body which need to be sent via the Internet. There may also be certain sites which don't count towards your monthly limit, e.g. traffic to/from the ISP's own web site. The end result is that your own running count of traffic is likely to be an overestimate of usage. If the ISP is going to be charging by volume, they should have some mechanism to allow you to monitor your usage. Most people in New Zealand have volume-limited broadband, and each ISP has a usage tracking mechanism on their web site, at least a total for the current billing cycle. My cable provider goes as far as giving monthly, daily and hourly usage graphs, and lets me download a .csv file with an hourly breakdown of bytes transferred, but not revealing any detail such as protocols or sites. Another provider did a breakdown by major protocol (e.g. HTTP, E-mail and "other"). -- David Empson dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
From: JF Mezei on 10 May 2010 04:59
To Barry Margolin: many thanks for the pointer. David Empson wrote: > An earlier subthread mentions command line tools, but I'm dubious > whether you will actually get the information you need via SNMP. That is something I need to test. I have a cisco router and cisco switch, and those should have such counts available via snmp. I just have to work to see if they do. The ADSL modem *might* have that, but I have to see if it supports snmp properly. > There may also be certain sites which don't count towards your monthly > limit, e.g. traffic to/from the ISP's own web site. The telco is intercepting traffic bewteen me and my ISP as PPPoE packets and pretends its count is accurate, but at the CRTC, they had to admit it isn't because it also has DPI equipment which purposefully drops packets which are counted by its router. So my count will not match that of the big bad telco, and will not match that of my ISP, and my ISP's count will not match that of the telco. But the telco will be billing the ISP for my particular usage. My ISP has no choice but to rebill me those exhorbitant amounts and there will be no mechanisms to contest those amounts. The ISP's own counter (once they develop one) will not match the telco's. By gathering accurate stats before and after the big bad telco, it increases the odds of a succesful challenge of Bell canada bad counters when going to the regulators. > The end result is that your own running count of traffic is likely to be > an overestimate of usage. What the ISPs have seen so far was Bell's number being higher than their own. > If the ISP is going to be charging by volume, they should have some > mechanism to allow you to monitor your usage. It isn't the ISP. It is the big bad telco which was supposed to provide pointr to point raw data transfers and not be involved in all in this. The service is capacity based. |