bandwidth monitoring

[David J. Orman]

SNMP is the way to go, absolutely, at the switch + possibly router level. There is no other solution that even comes close. If absolutely necessary, you can, as the previous posted mentioned, monitor the servers themselves via SNMP. This generally isn't a good idea, however, and it is best to avoid it if possible (for bandwidth monitoring.. keep in mind you can monitor cpu, memory, and lots of other nifty stuff via snmp on the servers themselves.)

That being said, you'll need a way to collect data, analyze it, store it, and display it in usable means. There is again, one solution that trumps them all:
http://www.cacti.net/

I know I sound really opinionated, but it really is the truth. If they ever finish the PgSQL support, it'll be pure bliss. That's the only thing about the package I don't like, the mySQL requirement. ;)

Cheers,
David

----- Original Message -----
From: Cody Baker <cody at wilkshire.net>
Date: Friday, May 26, 2006 8:12 am
Subject: Re: bandwidth monitoring

> Ntop is a good tool, we use it, but my experience is that it's 
> buggy at
> best and downright unusable at times. Also, it's data isn't very
> portable. I'd recommend using SNMP data from a managed switch. If 
> that'snot an option the you might consider using SNMP data from 
> your router or
> worst case directly from each individual server. In terms of software
> this generally means net-snmp connected to rrdtool or mrtg. I googled
> real quick and
> http://www.openxtra.co.uk/resource-
> center/open_source_network_monitoring.phpseems to provide a quick 
> front en to these tools.
> 
> Thank You,
> 
> Cody Baker
> cody at wilkshire.net
> 
> 
> Steve Ames wrote:
> > ntop would work if its actually a hub. ntop would work with a switch
> > also but you'd have to tell the switch to make sure that your BSD
> > box gets a copy of all traffic.
> >
> > On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 08:55:59AM -0700, Jim Pazarena wrote:
> >   
> >> Is there the ability to have a server which is in the common hub
> >> monitor bandwidth usage of clients going out the gateway?
> >>
> >> My telco will shortly be changing billing practices and bandwidth
> >> usage per client will be extremely important per customer.
> >>
> >> Is there a FreeBSD port available to do this, or must I have an 
> appliance>> in-line that all traffic passes thru?
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >> Jim
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