IP Accounting Information / Signal /Bandwidth Rules Setup [Archive]

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mlarsen

10-30-2002, 08:36 AM

Hi guys,

I know that we have had several phone conversations about this, but I thought I would post my requests here on the forum and see what everyone else thinks about the following requested features:

1) Some way of obtaining the IP Accounting information (bits in and out) for each IP that goes through the Server. Don't care whether it is SNMP or some other kind of protocol - or even something custom - as long as it is possible to get the information out of it.

2) Something similar to #1 that gets the signal strength of each client

3) A way to upload and activate new bandwidth rules

4) A way to add and remove MAC addresses

As we have talked on the phone before, I would like to modify the management system that I use to run our WIPOPs so that it can track the IP usage and signal strength for each wireless customer as well as automatically upload the bandwidth settings and provision the MAC address of the customer CPE when we add new clients.

If it would help, I would be happy to send you a dump of my database program and the PHP code so you know what I am trying to do.

Anyway, good job guys. I am intending to replace all of my homegrown Linux boxes with Station-Server. That should add up to another ten or so licences for you!

Matt Larsen
mlarsen@inventivemedia.net

lonnie

10-30-2002, 08:49 AM

WE have PHP in the StarOS software. What database do you use? Maybe we could just run your software under StarOS Server.

Can you post a demo login for people so they can see if this is something they would like?

We could automate a lot of things if we had a database to organize it all. A relational database would open up further organization tasks that right now are tough. Each system can only know about its own environment. A relational database would open the concept of a whole system, with knowledge of the systems it contains.

mlarsen

10-30-2002, 09:37 AM

Hi Lonnie,

Here is an older version of it:

http://www.inventivemedia.net/network/

Take a look and see what you think. What I would like to do is have it interface with Station-Server to provision the MAC address and bandwidth rules, then setup the configuration files for a monitoring system (such as Big Brother or Nagios) automatically. The most important fields for this application are Wireless and Radios. I use this database to monitor all of my DSL loops and keep track of my vital network information and that could either be included or removed. I think that it would be nice to make it modular so that you could include only the modules that are necessary and remove the ones that are not so necessary (such as the DSL modules).

I don't think that the database is something that should be included in the Station Server software, as it will add a fair amount of complexity. I do think that the idea of a Management-Server is a better idea. I have one server (the proto-Management Server) at my NOC that runs the database and interfaces with all of the other Station-Servers at the APs, the radius server and the billing server. I see that as a key way of tying together all of the different elements of running a WISP. One Management Server could run 1 or 100 remote Station-Servers. I think it would also make sense to make it vendor neutral - so that it would be capable of working with whatever radios, billing server, monitoring system, etc etc via a modular design.

Take a look and let me know what you think of it.

Matt Larsen
mlarsen@inventivemedia.net

bairdc

10-30-2002, 10:07 AM

Id like to cast my vote for this as well. I've been considering an "incentive program" for my customers that will hopefully keep bandwidth down. Basically, what I'm thinking of doing is this: For $40/mo. a customer can have their choice of either 128 up/64 down with a 2 gigabyte per week limit or they can have 256 up/256 down if they keep their usage to under 500 megs per week. I'm hoping that the incentive of additional speed will keep people from hogging insane amounts of bandwidth with P2P apps.

If I do this, I would build a script that would track usage, and if the user goes over 500 megs in a 1-week period, the system would automatically throttle their connection to 128/64. This throttling would remain in effect until they keep their usage under 500 megs for 2 consecutive weeks, at which point, it would bump back to 256/256.

Anyway, my only problem in getting this to happen is that there is currently no way to upload the new cbq rules to StarOS. However, if StarOS were capable of looking at a database for the cbq settings, it would be a simple matter of updating the user's database record with the new speed.

Craig

lonnie

10-30-2002, 11:45 AM

Your incentive program is interesting and is along the lines of our bandwidth fallback mechanism, but it uses a longer time period.

We would like to see this and would work with you guys to get the framework in place.

We will define the mechanism for talking to our system to read and write any data value.

tony

11-04-2002, 12:25 AM

1) Some way of obtaining the IP Accounting information (bits in and out) for each IP that goes through the Server. Don't care whether it is SNMP or some other kind of protocol - or even something custom - as long as it is possible to get the information out of it.

We are going to provide a full-fledged IP accounting system, with Cisco compatible reports in the next release. It is in testing phase right now.

Thanks!

mlarsen

11-04-2002, 07:59 AM

Hi Tony,

I talked with Lonnie on the phone about this, and he showed me the CBQ reports tool and how to configure it. I think that this will give me the information that I am looking for, for starters.

As soon as I get a couple of the Server versions installed, I will start working on the tools to plug into my database to get the cbq report information.

I'd still like to have a different interface to directly input the CBQ rules, but will try to work with what is there to get them input.

Sooooooo close.

Matt Larsen
mlarsen@inventivemedia.net

lonnie

11-04-2002, 09:04 AM

Matt,

We will contact you, but Tony has a new module that will report in a much easier to support format. Almost ready.

Steve

11-06-2002, 10:34 PM

Well,

I have had the new release installed and running for 7 hours. Ip accounting is up and running and I'm writing some scripts to pull the data.

Preliminary results:

Daily Usage for: 20X.XXX.XX.XX

284.34 MB Downloaded
5.50 MB Uploaded
-------
289.84 MB Total Thruput
14.15% of your Monthly BW Allowance

It doesn't get much better than that! :D

A little more work with the DBD::mysql perl module, and then writing the cgi's and I'm set.

Thanks guys.

lonnie

11-07-2002, 12:11 AM

Glad it is working out. We have to thank Eje for the time he spent with Tony and for some of his ideas. How does this look to you Matt?

mlarsen

11-07-2002, 07:55 AM

tony

11-07-2002, 09:34 AM

Looking good to me.

I am assuming that this is outputting Cisco NetFlow type traffic?

If that is so, I should be able to run on a NetFlow collection unit and direct the traffic right into my Rodopi billing system. However, I am more interested in figuring out a way to integrate it into my network management database at some point in the very near future.

Lonnie and Tony, you guys have done a good job and provided exactly what I was looking for.

Now, just get it so we can automatically upload the cbq files and we will be set!

Matt Larsen
mlarsen@inventivemedia.net

You can take a sample collection from one of your systems after enabling the accounting to see if your collection agent supports it's format.

We are working on the configuration backup and restore utilities right now which are almost finished. You will be able to download and upload indivisual scripts as well.

Thanks