Monitoring the amount of data through my modem

[markyork67]

I am considering switching to an ISP plan that has a limit on monthly data usage. Before I do that I wanted to find out exactly how much I'm using.

I've been searching for a product that would allow me to do that and I'm getting a bit overwhelmed. My knowledge of networks doesn't go beyond being able to set up a home wireless network, set up wireless devices to connect to the network, and set up mac filtering in the router.

My home network is accessed via Ethernet by a computer, a TV and a work IP phone, and wirelessly from two phones, two computers, a ROKU, a printer, a few Kindle readers, and a Blu-Ray player - from which we do a LOT of streaming, hence, my need to find out how much data I'm actually using.

It's just me and my wife and the occasional friend that accesses the network so I'm not interested in any kind of parental controls or monitoring what sites are visited or what programs access the internet - just how much data goes through my DSL modem.

My router's logs (it's an Actiontec C1000A modem/router) don't record how much data is used - just what network IP address accessed what internet address, so I have to find a third-party product that gets data usage.

My search has brought me to all types of products, including Wireshark, PRTG, CyberSieve and some others.

Aside from them all having a lot more than I need, I'm not sure that anything I've come across would work for what I'm trying to do anyway, as they all are installed on a computer, so the software can only monitor the internet traffic through that computer, right? If I want to watch the amount data usage for all of the devices accessing the internet through my modem, then I need a cloud-based service, or something attached to/installed on the modem, don't I?

 

[bill001g]

Not a easy thing to do since router have no place to store the data long term. You lose power and your data is gone. There are a few other option if you did not have a DSL modem in the same box. A third party firmware like gargoyle has the ability to monitor quotas. Not sure where it store the data, it has a limited number of routers it runs on. There are other ways on dd-wrt to export data to a external server but non of that really matters since you can't get open source drivers for the DSL modem so you can't find images for third party software.

I have seen it suggested that you can run all your traffic though a vpn site for a while and some VPN sites tract how much traffic you have used. Then again you would need the router to run VPN for you running from a client only gives you the traffic from that one client.

 

[markyork67]

I do have two NAS drives that are always on/connected - could I run anything from there? I'm thinking not, because it'd have to have an OS to run the software or something, wouldn't it?

 

[bill001g]

The router itself would have to have software to write data to the NAS. DD-WRT in unix based so it likely could do something like that but again you can't run dd-wrt on a router that has a dsl or cable modem in it.

 

[markyork67]

I do have two large NAS drive connected wirelessly to my network. Would I be able to install something on one of those?

 

[bill001g]

Nas is pretty stupid but lets assume you had a giant windows machine with disk arrays and every software there is. It could reports on how much data was sent to the disk but since traffic destined for the internet never passes though it would not be able to know anything about network traffic.

Pretty much the router is the only device that can intercept the data.

I suspect if you really want to do this you only have a couple of options.

You will need a new router and maybe a server. You would need to place this new router in front of your current router either using the current router in bridge mode or run router behind router if you can tolerat the double nat.

So if you want to try just a router you would need to look at a third party software called Gargoyle. They have a list of router it runs on and many of the popular ones are supported. The main feature this third party software has is that it supports data caps even by individual machines. It didn't run on my router and I have never spent the time to see where it stores the data over say a months time. Of course in memory would be very bad if you lost power and if it writes it to the internal flash you run the risk of burning it out. The firmware flash has very low write rates and of course you can't replace the chip. If it can write to a USB drive then it would be fine.

The other way to do it is with a server to collect the data. You would still need a new router that can run third party firmware but in this case you are looking at dd-wrt or tomato which are both supported on many routers.

You have already found the main tool to do this called PRTG...although there are free ones also. These router images support a version of cisco netflow. The router sends reports of every data flow opened to the server. Overkill for what you need but you would know how much traffic was going to every location and who was doing it and when.

The other option if you are going to have a server is to use the server as a firewall and place it between your current router and your new router. You would then run the new router as a AP only.