network statistics analyzer

[QuadrupleJ]

I've got an old beige G3 running 10.2 Server which is sharing our ADSL internet connection to the other computers in the house. Currently, my ADSL plan is unlimited and so my ISP does not keep a record of how much we download.

Does anyone know of any software (which could preferably run as a daemon) which could monitor the traffic in and out and record statistics for download usage. I know there are quite a few which can show current throughput (including Apple's own 'Server Status' application), however I am yet to find one which can record data transfer vs time.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[michaelsanford]

Have a look at the ntop utility (via Fink). I'm not sure if there's a logging option though, and it's not a daemon, but it might partly do the trick...

[rbuenger]

Try a look at Darkstat. This is one of the best static analysers for networks. And Darkstat is available as a MacOS X Package. No need to use Fink and X11 for this.

Darkstat not only informs you about download or upload used but also can tell you which services or URL's have caused this rates.

Darkstat runs as a daemon and creates HTML-Pages with this statistics. So with WebDesktop you even can watch those statistics as you desktop background updated every minute or so.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9212

And DarkStat version 3 is on it's way with even more features

[QuadrupleJ]

can dark stat actually track MB over time, and give you specific numbers? Because that's all I want. Eg. number of MB down/up loaded in February; in the last 30 days; in the last two weeks; average per day, etc.

[rbuenger]

Yes, this is one of the thinks Darkstat can do. Just show you how many MB you've transfered up or down. And if you want it more specific you can choose to display where all thoese MB's gone to sorted in services (Mail, Web) or actual servers like macosx.com or p2p

So you not only know when you've donwloaded to much but you can also see where you can tune a little bit to get more transfer for a specific service.

And by the way it's even a kind of security because you can look if all you transfers went over ports you allowed or actually have usd. So if you see that you've transmited 50MB to mysecretpage.com and never visited them you know that you check for trojans...

The only think you should remember is to reset darkstats statistics on evey first of a month because it just collects data for you. But a simple cron job could do this reset if you don't wanne press the button every month

Darkstat is a nice tool for everyone to check how many transfer you musicstream generates or just to wonder how many MB's you simple mailcheck every 5 minutes can add.