naschenweng.info

Despite the bad wrap, Telkom seems to get from the ADSL-user base, I must say, that I have been wowed with the consistency of service delivered. My stats-monitoring application has been a good "invention" as it allows me to track service levels:

Over the last 4 weeks, SNR/attenuation have been consistent and without a drop of dB's, I have been able to get a consistent 4Mb/sec service. Surprisingly there has even been a case where my line delivered a max 600KB/sec - not sure how this is possible. I also don't believe that the stats are skewed, as those figures are taken straight off the modem-routers WAN-port.

If you want to use the scripts, donate below (you require a running version of Perl with Net::Telnet and Net::Ping, rrdtool -- the scripts will run on the Synology out of the box).

In a previous post I explained how to gather statistics for your Netgear DG834 DSL modem router. Thanks for all the donations!! I have made some subtle changes in the router.cgi to display SNR/attenuation in one chart and display the latest values:

The scripts don't just run on a Synology DiskStation. I have received reports that people integrated the scripts with their Linux boxes, QNAPs and others. In some instances, people modified the scripts (the code is easy enough to modify even for a Linux newbie) to make them work with other routers.

Again, please note, that out of the box, the scripts will work with any modem router supporting telnet and "adslctl" on the router. I would love to make SNMP or HTTP-polling functionality available, but have not got any router supporting this at the moment.

If you want to use the scripts, donate below (you require a running version of Perl with Net::Telnet and Net::Ping, rrdtool -- the scripts will run on the Synology out of the box).

In a previous post I explained the significance of SNR and attenuation for ADSL lines.

I have spent now a significant amount of time to write scripts to retrieve the ADSL-statistics for my Netgear DG834v4 ADSL router. The script will equally work on any Broadcom based modem-router which allows access to telnet and supports the command "adslctl".

The solution is really simple and consists of one perl-script collating the information and a CGI-script which then produces the stats in real time from your webserver:

I have deployed the solution on my Synology DiskStation DS107+ (FW722) and had the solution running now for a day. If you want to run this on the Synology, you will need to install rrdtool via ipkg. If you want to run it on another Linux-based environment, ensure that you have access to the command-line version of rrdtool and rrdcgi (which comes bundled with rrdtool).

My current setup produces stats every 15 minutes and reports on the following stats:

• Ping statistics. Currently against my local ISP - saix.net, but scripts are easy to modify to include your own pings
• ADSL signal to noise ratio (up / down)
• ADSL attenuation (up / down)
• Power output (up / down)
• Maximum ADSL data rate (up / down)
• ADSL sync speed (up / down)

All stats are reported per hour, day, week and month. In the future I want to enhance the scripts to provide additional useful reports for the Netgear DG834.

By now you are probably asking "Where is the download-link?" --- well here is the thing, my hosting and the popularity of this site is starting to cost me a bundle. So I am introducing donation-ware. It is up to you to decide if you want to donate USD 1,00 or a million (yeah baby) using PayPal via the donation-button below. The donation is absolutely save and you will receive the download-link automatically via email (link is valid for 24 hours). Further, I will email you any updates to the scripts and will look at implementing any recommendations you have.

I think this sounds like a fair deal, especially since it took me in access of 60 hours just getting those scripts done (don't get a fright though - the scripts are simple - that's the beauty of the solution).

If you want to use the scripts, donate below (you require a running version of Perl with Net::Telnet and Net::Ping, rrdtool -- the scripts will run on the Synology out of the box).

In a previous post I described how to install Squid on the Synology. This small tutorial will now explain how to display your usage behaviour in Squid via Webalizer.

You need to have ipkg installed and need to have an understanding on how to include 3rd party apps (i.e. via phpsrc).

1. Install webalizer: ipkg install webalizer
2. Create a new config file: cp /opt/etc/webalizer.conf.sample /opt/etc/webalizer.conf
3. Adjust your log-file entry and point it to your Squid-access log: LogFile /opt/var/squid/logs/access.log
   
4. Adjust your output directory (this is the HTML-directory from which you want to display your stats): OutputDir /volume1/webapps/scripts/squid/usage
5. Create a cronjob entry (remember that the crontab needs to have tabs instead of spaces): 5 0 * * * root /opt/bin/webalizer -F squid -A 100 -C 100 -R 100 -S 100 -U 100 -e 100 -E 100 -Q

The above will create usage statistics every day (5 minutes past midnight) and publish the stats to the output-directory.

Some more cool stuff:

• Use HideUrl to hide sites from the statistics. I typically hide access to all my local servers, since I am only interested in the outbound usage.
• Use GroupUrl and HideUrl together to group certain websites and make it one line-item in the stats. I access the PS3ZA-forum frequently, so I don't want to have every URL show, since it fills up the stats. Using GroupUrl www.ps3za.co.za/forum and HideUrl www.ps3za.co.za/forum will create one line-item in the stats. You can do the same with your RSS-feeds and others.
• To avoid your logs filling up, you want to add a cronjob to rotate your squid access-logs (remember those TABS - this job will rotate the logs 30 minutes past midnight every month): 30 * 1 * * root /opt/sbin/squid -k rotate. Important: Webalizer don't rotate the logs during the month - I was not able to get Webalizer to analyse those logs and you will lose your monthly stats.

In a previous post I detailed how to install Squid on a Synology DS107+. This post explains how you are able to include Squid's cache-manager UI. This post is for advanced users and I am not going to re-explain how to configure a 3rd party application in the DS.

1. Adjust your cachemgr.conf and include your Squid's url. In my case this is an extra line with 172.16.0.97:8080
2. Ensure that you have configured the correct ACLs for the cache-manager. If you took my squid.conf then you are fine.

3. Test the cache-manager: squidclient -h 172.16.0.97 -p 8080 mgr:info

   Code:

   	Squid Object Cache: Version 2.6.STABLE21
   	Start Time:  Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:57:53 GMT
   	Current Time:  Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:08:44 GMT
   	Connection information for squid:
   	Number of clients accessing cache:  2
   	Number of HTTP requests received:  154
   	Number of ICP messages received:  0
   	Number of ICP messages sent:  0
   	Number of queued ICP replies:  0
   	Request failure ratio:   0.01
   	Average HTTP requests per minute since start:  14.2
   	Average ICP messages per minute since start:  0.0
   	Select loop called: 135277 times, 4.810 ms avg

4. The Squid installation comes with the cachemgr.cgi in /opt/libexec/cachemgr.cgi. Best way is to symlink (ln -s) the file into your 3rd party-directory

With the above information you will be able to tune Squid accordingly.