Becasue its my first post here let me start out by saying hello.

I am a freelance web developer and recently bought and co-located my own web box to host my clients sites. It was cheaper and easier for me to have my own system PLUS I wanted my own machine.

I charge my clients per GB they use per month. I contract them for 1 year in advance and the basic charge includes storage and 1gb of traffic. I host several small niche sites and its enough bandwidth for most of them. BUT i need a better way to track thier usage. I have 2 clients that are starting to pull more bandwidth and i need to get a an acurrate count of how much total bandwidth they are using (Http, fto, e-mail, ect.). As for now I have to check each service log file for each clients add up the total from each log and do the math on a pad. FYI its a pain in the ass and with growth it's really not a viable solution.

WHat software is out there to meter thier usage based on IP and service? My email server already breaks it down per URL so that can easily be tracked. but FTP, HTTP, and streaming media,a nd front page access are a bitch to track.

Also i already searched the archives and it broke down into a huge debate over bulk bandwidth purcashes vs. price. please lets just try to stick with what packages are availabel and whats good and whats crap.

Thanks,
puder :cartman:

Hey Puder,

I use Plesk 5.0.2 myself which does monitor bandwidth for http very nicely. I believe Plesk is coming out with tracking for FTP in a future release (they may also include mail).

You can install a nice tool called isoqlog which can track mail bandwidth if you don't like adding up logs.

For streaming media, I think it all depends on what you are using. Real servers (aka Helix) record traffic on each file by itself. And since you can't place a .rm file in a user's folder (you have to stream it from the /real directory) that part will never be added to a software panel like PSA. I think you may be out of luck for the media thing since we still have to add this up by hand :rolleyes:

Hope this helps some,

Eric

I figured as much on the media. FYI i am running MS medai server. ion IIS 5

Sooner or later i am goign to switch to apache and then to linux boxxes so i don;t have to deal with MS crap any more.

what is the the web address for plesk?

Its www.Plesk.com

Hey puder,

Welcome to one of the most cut throat industries out there - right up there with selling long distance service. :)

There are a couple of guys out there for Windows - I believe HostingController is fairly popular.

By the way braysurdi - did you get my PM?

thanks for the welcome, but i've been here for 5 years. :D I'm certainbly not looking to make my fortune off selling hosting. I host becasue its easier for me and It gives me teh fle4xability to do what i want with my servers/Not tomention learn eth intricacies of hosting. RIght now i'm 22 and happy doign freelance. Eventually I will proably want to get soem $$$ stability and work for a company (if the job market ever improves) and i fogure knowing and havign a few years experience running my own boxxes should make me all teh more attractive to an emplorer.

I've already pretty much deceied (as a result of this site) to place my load balanced backup machine with a different provider offsite. Once that is totally up and runnign guess what else is getting moved toa different colo??? It woudl seem i can geta hell of alot beter deal adn maybe actually make some money hosting sites as oppsed to just braeking even...........

thanks for the info and the welcome. And as for the plesk thing i should have tried that first......

I use plesk, but I have read somewhere that Ensim is around 1/5th the cost and it does have bandwidth logs kept on nearly everything (email, ftp, www) as opposed to Plesk, which I believe watches only www.

I have no experience with Ensim, someone who does might want to pipe in. If I am right about what I read, that might be your best option. It probably won't still gauge the streaming stuff, but might get everything else.

-WC-

any other input from the peanut gallery? Its of course appreciated :D

ttt

So you know for future posts, bumps to the top are specifically listed in rules as not allowed. Wish I could help you with your question though. Might want to goto Ensim's webpage though, I think I am right about it being able to do what you are looking for.

-WC-

ok cool

sorry abotu eth TTT i post at another forum that actually until abotu amonth ago used the same software and lookedvery similar and TTT are allowed there. I'll make sure i dont; do that in the future here.

www.offshoreonly.com is the other site :D (i'm a boat junkie, and a post whore) :cartman:

oh yeah i e-mailed ensim and am waiting to hear back as to exactly what thier software can do for my win2000 box.

Check out H Sphere from psoft. It will not only monitor bandwidth it will automatically charge for customers going over since it has a complete billing automation suite. The system also allows you to bill for any extras or additions the customers might want.

Linux, Free BSD and Windows are all supported as well.

everyday, thanke for the info. i'll check it out. Any idea how much thier suite is?

Dig deep in your pockets and give. Praise Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out *** ******** too.
It has all H Sphere billing features. Furthermore, there are a lot of interesting capabilities that H Sphere doesn't have.

<<MOD NOTE: That company has come here and spammed the forum so many times that I wouldn't use their product if they gave it to me for free, nor trust a bunch of spammers who can't sell their crap without spamming forums. Pathetic. Please suport companies who do NOT spam the forum.>>

hmmm i gues i shodul disreguard what AlexanderFry has tooffer huh???