4 ms·

Somehow I expected this talk about real network monitoring like using Ntop, Nagios, arpwatch etc. Just creating another dhcpd for the lan/wifi feels cumbersome

by trm42 11y ago

Somehow I expected this talk about real network monitoring like using Ntop, Nagios, arpwatch etc. Just creating another dhcpd for the lan/wifi feels cumbersome just to get dhcp leases. So how about using RPI as a network bridge between the router and the client hosts and then using Ntop, arpwatch etc. Then you can actually monitor the traffic in detail.

forcer 11y ago
I read some sources that Pi is not that fast to route traffic through it. However, maybe at least setting up DNS server on Pi would get some "live" stats without sacrificing performance ?
- trm42 11y ago
  I would expect that RPI could route normal home lan traffic well enough unless there's some big IO limitations regarding ethernet+usb ethernet. Linux has been used for routing with a lot lower spec HW than RPI or RPI2.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    the Ethernet on the PI is limited by the USB as that is how the Ethernet is implimented.
  - haswell 11y ago
    I ran a Pi router for awhile, and can confirm that the USB ports are the bottleneck. It was great when I was using it to split traffic between two crappy 3-6Mbit links, but once I finally got hooked up with a decent connection (90Mbit), I quickly hit a 30Mbit-ish ceiling.
    - trm42 11y ago
      Sounds plausible. Thanks for the info :)
- andyl 11y ago
  Could you mention which sources? I'm thinking of building an access point on a Pi and would like to read your sources before diving in.
Oletros 11y ago
You're limited by the 100 Mbps of the fast ethernet on the Pi
rigaspapas 11y ago
Would arpwatch provide any extra information? Ntop sounds like a very interesting idea, I wasn't aware. I suppose you mean you can use a wireless card on you Pi, so the clients can connect through it, and then use ntop to measure the usage... Right?
- trm42 11y ago
  It wouldn't provide extra information but it would be cleaner way to follow the network compared to reading dhcpd leases. You could have RPI (or other comp) working as the wifi AP or you have RPI between the WAN router and the actual Switch/Access point. This way RPIs slow IO wouldn't slow down your intranet.
lamontcg 11y ago
I did this. Over years I started with a freebsd box with a front wired network to a DSL link that had no other clients physically connected to it, with wireless and wired backend cards in it to serve the client networks... To a system where the freebsd router had a single drop and two interfaces and did routing between them and DHCP'd for the client network (and the physical network was bridged between wireless and wired by the wireless router I had bought)... To a system where I just have a wireless router and don't worry about it that much any more. I get traffic stats, connected clients, etc which is mostly what I need to know about. Its nice being able to sniff all your wireless traffic at the AP, its also nice being able to tcpdump all your transit, but ultimately the complexity wasn't worth the flexibility for me.

by trm42 11y ago

forcer 11y ago

I read some sources that Pi is not that fast to route traffic through it. However, maybe at least setting up DNS server on Pi would get some "live" stats without sacrificing performance ?

trm42 11y ago
I would expect that RPI could route normal home lan traffic well enough unless there's some big IO limitations regarding ethernet+usb ethernet. Linux has been used for routing with a lot lower spec HW than RPI or RPI2.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  the Ethernet on the PI is limited by the USB as that is how the Ethernet is implimented.
- haswell 11y ago
  I ran a Pi router for awhile, and can confirm that the USB ports are the bottleneck. It was great when I was using it to split traffic between two crappy 3-6Mbit links, but once I finally got hooked up with a decent connection (90Mbit), I quickly hit a 30Mbit-ish ceiling.
  - trm42 11y ago
    Sounds plausible. Thanks for the info :)
andyl 11y ago
Could you mention which sources? I'm thinking of building an access point on a Pi and would like to read your sources before diving in.

Oletros 11y ago

You're limited by the 100 Mbps of the fast ethernet on the Pi

rigaspapas 11y ago

Would arpwatch provide any extra information? Ntop sounds like a very interesting idea, I wasn't aware. I suppose you mean you can use a wireless card on you Pi, so the clients can connect through it, and then use ntop to measure the usage... Right?

trm42 11y ago
It wouldn't provide extra information but it would be cleaner way to follow the network compared to reading dhcpd leases. You could have RPI (or other comp) working as the wifi AP or you have RPI between the WAN router and the actual Switch/Access point. This way RPIs slow IO wouldn't slow down your intranet.

lamontcg 11y ago

I did this. Over years I started with a freebsd box with a front wired network to a DSL link that had no other clients physically connected to it, with wireless and wired backend cards in it to serve the client networks... To a system where the freebsd router had a single drop and two interfaces and did routing between them and DHCP'd for the client network (and the physical network was bridged between wireless and wired by the wireless router I had bought)... To a system where I just have a wireless router and don't worry about it that much any more. I get traffic stats, connected clients, etc which is mostly what I need to know about. Its nice being able to sniff all your wireless traffic at the AP, its also nice being able to tcpdump all your transit, but ultimately the complexity wasn't worth the flexibility for me.