Hello.

Does anyone have a recommendation to an application which can monitor the bandwidth usage on a T1?

What would be the most accurate way to get real time information as well as past statistics on the amount of bandwidth that a T1 uses?

Pulling the syslogs or perhaps putting a computer with 2 ethernet cards in between after the firewall with a program monitoring the ethernet card usage?

If anyone has any suggestions or comments, I would sure like to hear them.

Thanks for your help.

Any device that has SNMP capabilities has bandwidth monitoring integrated in. What type of device are you monitoring? On a Cisco IOS device you can monitor by using the command -

FrameSw#sh int s0/1
Serial0/1 is up, line protocol is up
Hardware is PowerQUICC Serial
Internet address is 10.255.255.5/30
MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1544 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec,
reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255

The TXLOAD and the RXLOAD are how much of the 1.54 megs of bandwidth being used. Since this is in my lab it is 1/255. If you are in to eye candy Solarwinds makes some cool gauges that will monitor this MIB in real time. You just have to put the SNMP string into both Solarwinds and the monitored device, and add the Solarwinds box to the permited ACL.

I forgot to mention MRTG, MRTG is a great application for long term monitoring and best yet it is free. Cacti is also excellent and more detailed yet.

Hi.

I just trying to monitor my T1 data connection. I suppose I would need to use the MRTG program to monitor the Sonicwall firewall on the system.

THANKS FOR THE TIP!

Depending how much you enjoy command line configuration, MRTG might not be very easy to use. It's one of those things that setting up devices 2-200 are easy but it's a PITA the first time, especially on Windows where you need to get ActivePerl, FireDaemon, and then configure. The Solar Winds stuff is a bit friendlier.

Are there any open source bandwidth monitoring programs that don't require the activeperl,firedaemon,etc..?

Are there programs which use SNMP or syslogs able to measure the bandwidth in real time or does it simple do a check every 5 minutes than graph out a day use?

Do you know of any way to get real time bandwidth measurement so you can pinpoint down to the second the bandwidth usage?

Thanks.

The problem with the up to the second graphs is that it beats the hell out of the router to ask it constantly how much traffic is going through. If someone made a passive monitor that sniffed the line it would be more helpful. I think someone has made a bootable CD installer that just puts cacti on a PC. You might try looking for that if you have a spare machine.

Are there are multiple methods to monitor the T1 that may not involve polling logs in the router?

I have a small windows based bandwidth monitor program on my computer that basically monitors the ethernet card in real time.

Are there any programs that can simple monitor the ethernet card traffic without having to poll the router? Perhaps a program that monitors the network card would be placed in a dedicated computer placed after your firewall but before your network where it would be completely transparent but runs a program monitoring the network card? I am kind of thinking out loud here but does that sound like a feasible idea?

Thanks

Check your other post.

One program to do that is called Ethereal. It gets put on a hub between your sonicwall and your network and will do traffic monitoring/sniffing/protocol analyze.

MRTG is highly recommended.