Monitoring usage on AirPort Extreme

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Level 1

10 points

Monitoring usage on AirPort Extreme

Hi,

I need to buy a new wifi access point and I was going to go wit the AirPort Extreme to replace a Netgear that I have now.

I am wondering if the AirPort utility allows for monitoring network usage. Specifically I would like to know how much I am using in any given period of time because Comcast just called me to tell me I use 440GB last month!

Seems excessive to me. My wife and I both have Mac Books that we use daily, a Mac Mini that I use to watch DVDs and has my iTunes library, whcih barely ever downloads anything but software updates, and a Series 3 Tivo box which gets it's schedules and the odd promo over my broadband internet. I mean 440GB in a month is a lot of YouTube... Especially considering that I did nothing different last month.

In any case, I am using WPA2, not broadcasting an SSID and restricting access to specific MAC addresses now, wo it should be just me using the darn thing but it woudl still make me feel better if I could track bandwith usage.

Thanks for any tips.

D

MacBook Pro 17", Mac Mini 1.5 G4, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Aug 15, 2008 11:13 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 15, 2008 11:40 AM in response to David Yarza

I don't know how to measure Comcast broadband usage, but here's what I would do:

1) Change your SSID and security code.

2) Check to see if someone has tapped into your Ethernet network.

3) Ask Comcast to verify that your are not somehow linked to other Comcast users in your neighborhood. See this thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7875777#7875777

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Answer 2

David Yarza Author

Level 1

10 points

Aug 15, 2008 5:37 PM in response to James A. Weston

Thanks for the tip. I don't really see any other access points near me. My next door neighbor has one that is secure, but the question could be, is Comcast seeing my bandwidth usage somehow mixed with someone else's.

Thanks,

Still, if someone knows of a way to "meter" usage, it would be very useful in confronting Comcast should that be necessary.

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Answer 3

Aug 16, 2008 7:52 AM in response to David Yarza

Hi,

The AEBS does support a featutre called SNMP (simple network management protocol), and SNMP has someething called a MIB (management information base). The MIB contains port activity statistics.

I belive you shoud be able, if you feel industrious, to set up a uility called Cacti on one of your Macs. What Cacti does is query the MIB on your AEBS every few minutes to buildgraphs of port throughpuys in and out. It does take a liitle savvy to set up Cacti, but it can be a very useful tool. You can read about Cacti at their web site: http://www.cacti.net/ The down side is that you have to leave a computer on all the time to run Cacti.

You can get a little information from the AEBS configuraation utility under the Confiure Manually option, then looking at the log under the Advanced tab. You can also see the hardware addesses of the client computers that have attached to your AEBS. Obviously, there shouldn't normally be more addresses than the number of computers you have.

By the way 440G bytes per month is about 1.4 megabits per second. If you had three or four computers tuned in to high resolution streaming music 24 hours a day, you could transfer that much data.

On the individual Macs you might want to look at the Activity Monitor in Applictions, Utilities folder. If the Activity Monitor is showing a lot of network activity when nothing is going on, it could be a sign that a virus or worm has gotten on the computer.

Bill

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Answer 4

Faethor

Level 1

100 points

Aug 18, 2008 8:35 AM in response to impulse_telecom

For those interested there are many free Windows SNMP programs out there. A good one for graphing throughput is called MRTG and can be found here:

http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/

It's worth also looking at the Solarwinds tool kits.

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Answer 5

David Yarza Author

Level 1

10 points

Aug 18, 2008 9:40 AM in response to impulse_telecom

Thanks!

I have a Mac Mini that is hooked up to my TV which I leave on all the time and is hard-wired to my hub/AirPort Extreme. It hosts my iTunes and iPhoto libraries as well as serve as a DVD player, so most of the time it does nothing. Sounds like a perfect candidate.

As for my usage, after battling Comcast for most of the day on Thursday, it seems that they had the wrong MAC address for the cable modem on my account, so it might turn out that the 440GB belongs to someone else and I might be OK, but this experience has certainly left me wanting to keep track.

Thanks again.

D

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Answer 6

David Yarza Author

Level 1

10 points

Aug 19, 2008 9:17 AM in response to impulse_telecom

OK, so I did some research on Cacti, SNMP and MIB and found out that I am not that industrious... I am a pretty smart guy but this gets over my head prety quick given the ammount of study time I want to devote to this issue.

The good news is that this being a Mac comunnity there is always something simpler. I found a Net Monitor utility that should do just fine for what I need. Here is a link if anyone else needs a way to track usage as well.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/netmonitor.html

Thanks for the help.

D

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