Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : Monitor traffic?

[selbach]

I want to be able to monitor (with statistic) and cap traffic on 3+ servers.

how is this done best?
I was thinking of somekind of switch or server set inbetween the servers and the internet monitoring and keeping data on the traffic use etc.

but what do you do?

and how to make such a monitor redundant so if it fails the network is not cut off from the world?

[tema]

Good monitoring software would be MRTG or Cacti.

[apnicsolutions]

For monitoring, use mrtg, ntop or plain old tcpdump.

For "capping" you should use tc and iproute2, specifically use the 'htb' qdisc with tc as it's probably the easiest and fastest to configure. www.lartc.org has a good guide on it.

This "server" will have to function as a router between your other servers and your uplink - if this server goes down, the other 3 machines are unreachable. This is unavoidable in the current scenario, just set up a second failover between them if you wish.

[ExileonMain]

For Monitoring, (like previously posted), just use MRTG. It's been the standard forever.

For capping, using your router is a fine way to do it and with regards as to how to do it, READ up on your router.

[JTY]

Depending on the model of your switch, you can probably cap the bandwidth on it. For example, this can be done on the Cisco Catalyst 2950.

As for monitoring bandwidth usage, MRTG and Cacti are the most popular systems for doing so.

[RedShift]

You can use iptables too for traffic shaping which is, imo, much easier than tc.

[ThomasB-ATLDC]

CACTI for stats. A good smart switch for traffic management (two if you want redundancy). Smart switch is generally easier to manage through interface than router iptables (just my opinion).

[stephenM]

Originally Posted by JTY

For example, this can be done on the Cisco Catalyst 2950.

Only on the EI IOS version.

[ISProvider]

Most switches allow you to cap your bandwidth to 10 or 100 mbps. If you wish to cap your bandwidth to another amount, configure IPtables to cap your bandwidth.

For Apache you can use mod_bandwidth and mod_throttle.

Cacti works great for monitoring purposes. Have been using it now for 2 years on quite a lot of servers and it does the job for me.

[LH-Jason]

Hello,

Catci or MRTG is a good software to setup to use with your switch that supports SNMP. You can get a 3com or Netgear that supports SNMP, configure Vlans and set the port speed 10/100,full or half. Thats if you don't want to spend too much on a Cisco 2950 etc.

Cheers!

Jason L.

[WorldStream]

Cisco is a very decent monitoring tool for monitoring not only traffic, but alot of other things. Basic traffic monitoring is very simple to configurate. Even advanced monitoring (like temperatures, powersupply etc.)

Give it a shot!

[Network Monitoring]

For me ORION nerwork performance monitor is the best monitoring tool to monitor network traffic.It is highly customizable and easy to use. Believe me because network monitoring is my line of business.

[joelin]

Hi,


do you install it on your servers respectively?

will it waste too much resource on record this?



thanks