Question

Using iptables to log bandwidth usage only at certain times of the day.

Asked by: 71M

I have a Linksys WRT54GL Wireless Router running the latest version of the Tomato firmware that my household uses exclusively for internet access.

Since by default, the Tomato firmware can't do this manually, I downloaded and installed a utility called ipt-parse (https://launchpad.net/ipt-parse) that parses output from iptables, and then displays bandwidth consumption for each client in the network (using a SQLite DB as a buffer).

Since ipt-parse lets you supply custom arguments for iptables, I'm wondering if it's possible to do something extra here. Since our internet service has both onpeak and offpeak hours, I'm wondering if it's possible to configure iptables to only supply current bandwidth consumption during certain hours and maybe just returning 0 otherwise.

Is it possible to configure iptables to perform that kind of output? Or will I have to go about this some other way?

Thanks!

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Asked On
2009-08-25 at 22:20:17ID24682160
Topics

Linux Networking

,

Miscellaneous Networking

,

Network Routers

Participating Experts
3
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: kartookPosted on 2009-08-25 at 22:55:39ID: 25184744

You can use Squid  proxy for supply   bandwidth consumption during certain hours ...



You can create access control lists with time parameters. For example, you can allow only business hour access from the home network, while always restricting access to host 192.168.1.23 or the LAN subnet

##########################
# Add this to the bottom of the ACL section of squid.conf
#
acl home_network src 192.168.1.0/24
acl business_hours time M T W H F 9:00-17:00
acl RestrictedHost src 192.168.1.23

#
# Add this at the top of the http_access section of squid.conf
#
http_access deny RestrictedHost
http_access allow home_network business_hours

#############################################

Or, you can allow morning access only:
###########################################
#
# Add this to the bottom of the ACL section of squid.conf
#
acl mornings time 08:00-12:00

#
# Add this at the top of the http_access section of squid.conf
#
http_access allow mornings

#########################################

Thanks

 

by: vikingtechnologiesPosted on 2009-08-25 at 23:44:26ID: 25184913

I don't know if tomato firmware has cron jobs but if cron exists then the you can try running ipt-parse on the hours that are onpeak.

 

by: 71MPosted on 2009-08-26 at 00:12:27ID: 25185003

kartook->
Oh cool thanks for that!
Hmm, I'm a little confused there. Will that actually block access? Or just reroute it during certain hours?

vikingtechnologies->
Yeah, Tomato has cron jobs. At the moment, ipt-parse is being executed every 15 minutes through it.
Hmm, yeah I was already thinking that, but I'm since I'm not exactly sure how iptables works (I'm assuming it outputs all of the net data since it was last called and now), I wasn't sure if that would actually make a difference or not (aside from making the log update somewhat slower)

 

by: nociPosted on 2009-08-26 at 00:13:16ID: 25185007

you can add iptables with a rule using:

iptables -A ....  -m time --timestart hh:mm[:ss]  --timestop hh:mm[:ss]

It can include a date with --datestart / --datestop.

See man iptables on a linux system or here: http://linuxreviews.org/man/iptables/#lbBU

 

by: 71MPosted on 2009-08-26 at 03:02:52ID: 31620548

Yes! That worked perfectly! I just had to append that to the script I already had and it worked from there on.

Thanks very much!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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