Monitoring Broadband Usage

[jdphoto]

So the lack of SNMP on the latest Airport Extreme's is now well documented across the internet. Does anyone know of anything relatively cheap (going for less than $100) that I could put between my modem and my airport extreme to monitor broadband traffic? Hopefully something that Peak Hour 3 could see?

I was thinking a firewall, but can't seem to justify the prices I'm seeing when I only really want to monitor data usage. Also am contemplating a router, and having it take over the routing from the Extreme so I could get host by host usage, but not looking forward to transferring my config over.

 

[Weaselboy]

Is everything connected by wired ethernet? You could use a smart switch like this. Just connect the switch to the AE, then run all your devices through the switch.

 

[jdphoto]

Unfortunately everything is wireless as I live in an apartment, thanks for the suggestion though, I'll keep it in mind if I move to a house and can run Cat6

 

[adam9c1]

Thank you for the info. I was monitoring bandwidth long ago then stopped. (I think if May have been peak hour too).



Was thinking if updating to AC but I guess that's not happening as I want to get back to monitoring.


Could you turn off wifi on router, put in simple smart switch and monitor that port and use a wap?

 

[jdphoto]

That's something similar to what I've been considering. I've thought about setting up a router such as this one, and just using the extreme as an access point, but I'm not sure how that'll affect Back to My Mac etc. I'm definitely torn as my current setup with just the airport extreme is working flawlessly minus the lack of monitoring capabilities.

 

[DennisBlah]

Move an device which has SNMP Services between your modem and Airport.
Like... A simple old computer, or a Rasberry Pi? With 2 interfaces, and let it forward all traffic to the Aiport.

Then you can easily monitor the traffic

I'd suggest Cacti, it's really simple to configure and setup and monitor

 

[Weaselboy]

Unfortunately everything is wireless as I live in an apartment, thanks for the suggestion though, I'll keep it in mind if I move to a house and can run Cat6

Ah... I see. It seems like you are going to be jumping through a bunch of hoops just to keep the Airport Extreme. How about just sell the AE and buy a router that does support SNMP? That would seem the easiest and use the least amount of equipment.

 

[jdphoto]

Ah... I see. It seems like you are going to be jumping through a bunch of hoops just to keep the Airport Extreme. How about just sell the AE and buy a router that does support SNMP? That would seem the easiest and use the least amount of equipment.

Thought about that, but like the compatibility I'm getting with Back to My Mac. Think I'm just going to get an Airport Express, and have it do the routing and just have the extreme be an access point (wireless turned off on the express). That way I can just import my config to the express and not have to worry about settings changing. The current express has snmp still.

 

[adam9c1]

I think the current express is N, not AC.

 

[jdphoto]

I think the current express is N, not AC.

Correct, that is why I was going to have it's wifi off. Just read that it only has 10/100 on the back of it though. Totally fine for internet, but will defeat the purpose of AC when transferring files between machines. Looks like I may try and pick up a prior generation extreme just to do the routing instead as it has gigabit.

 

[jdphoto]

Correct, that is why I was going to have it's wifi off. Just read that it only has 10/100 on the back of it though. Totally fine for internet, but will defeat the purpose of AC when transferring files between machines. Looks like I may try and pick up a prior generation extreme just to do the routing instead as it has gigabit.

Looks like I need to brush up on my network knowledge, according to this article, I may be fine? It uses a gigabit switch with wired clients in place of the airport extreme, but would it work the same? I've also attached a diagram of what I'm thinking in case anyone was curious (obviously not to scale ).

 

[jdphoto]

Looks like I need to brush up on my network knowledge, according to this article, I may be fine? It uses a gigabit switch with wired clients in place of the airport extreme, but would it work the same? I've also attached a diagram of what I'm thinking in case anyone was curious (obviously not to scale ).

Turns out it's as I feared, a gigabit switch is layer 2 vs layer 3 for the airport extreme as an access point so traffic would be bottlenecked heading back and forth between the express and the extreme. Guess I'm going to have Peak Hour 3 monitor each machine individually and get the monthly totals from comcast every month. Will just miss traffic from the iPhones.

 

[Eric M]

Small PC (fitp2i) +pfSense?

The above setup (if you can get find one small pc (fitpc2i or nuc)) works very well for me...

 

[Weaselboy]

Turns out it's as I feared, a gigabit switch is layer 2 vs layer 3 for the airport extreme as an access point so traffic would be bottlenecked heading back and forth between the express and the extreme. Guess I'm going to have Peak Hour 3 monitor each machine individually and get the monthly totals from comcast every month. Will just miss traffic from the iPhones.

I mentioned swapping out to a router with SNMP earlier, and you understandably said you were concerned about features like Back to my Mac working. I happened to run across a forum post earlier today from a member using one of the newer Asus AC routers and he had Back to my Mac working fine. It sounds like you know you way around enough you could sort through that on a third party router like the Asus or others. I know Apple has a support doc. that lists all the ports used and I think you would just need to forward those ports.

Not trying to brow beat you, just thought of you when I saw the post earlier and figured I'd mention it.