"Sonny" wrote in message
news:619b69c6-59ca-4964-9937-a43ae52a14a5@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> Has anyone here implemented a usage based billing system by sniffing
> HTTP packets? I tried searching it in the Web but come up short. I
> just want to know how to do it, i mean, a successful web download has
> a series of 200 OKs. What is the best indication that a page is
> successfully downloaded? Thanks.

How about a firewall packet counter?

"D. Stussy" writes:

> "Sonny" wrote in message
> news:619b69c6-59ca-4964-9937-a43ae52a14a5@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
>> Has anyone here implemented a usage based billing system by sniffing
>> HTTP packets? I tried searching it in the Web but come up short. I
>> just want to know how to do it, i mean, a successful web download has
>> a series of 200 OKs. What is the best indication that a page is
>> successfully downloaded? Thanks.
>
> How about a firewall packet counter?

Does it need a lot of CPU ressources? Does is slow down the
throughput?

Thanks for your reply,
-AJ

On Nov 19, 3:53 pm, Antoine Junod wrote:
> "D. Stussy" writes:
> > "Sonny" wrote in message
> >news:619b69c6-59ca-4964-9937-a43ae52a14a5@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> >> Has anyone here implemented a usage based billing system by sniffing
> >> HTTP packets? I tried searching it in the Web but come up short. I
> >> just want to know how to do it, i mean, a successful web download has
> >> a series of 200 OKs. What is the best indication that a page is
> >> successfully downloaded? Thanks.
>
> > How about a firewall packet counter?
>
> Does it need a lot of CPU resources? Does is slow down the
> throughput?
>
> Thanks for your reply,
> -AJ

Actually we're just doing a prototype, so far we're checking how many
packets for one http transaction, and the http headers that comes
along with it. We don't think that it needs a lot of CPU resources
though we're expecting many requests with different request for the
same web page/file which makes a packet counter kind of difficult to
implement. Hmm, is there an open source system which is similar to
Cisco's NetFlow?

"Sonny" wrote in message
news:5a5ec602-b052-4933-9d60-93a930484342@e25g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> On Nov 19, 3:53 pm, Antoine Junod wrote:
> > "D. Stussy" writes:
> > > "Sonny" wrote in message
> > >news:619b69c6-59ca-4964-9937-a43ae52a14a5@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> > >> Has anyone here implemented a usage based billing system by sniffing
> > >> HTTP packets? I tried searching it in the Web but come up short. I
> > >> just want to know how to do it, i mean, a successful web download has
> > >> a series of 200 OKs. What is the best indication that a page is
> > >> successfully downloaded? Thanks.
> >
> > > How about a firewall packet counter?
> >
> > Does it need a lot of CPU resources? Does is slow down the
> > throughput?
> >
> > Thanks for your reply,
> > -AJ
>
> Actually we're just doing a prototype, so far we're checking how many
> packets for one http transaction, and the http headers that comes
> along with it. We don't think that it needs a lot of CPU resources
> though we're expecting many requests with different request for the
> same web page/file which makes a packet counter kind of difficult to
> implement. Hmm, is there an open source system which is similar to
> Cisco's NetFlow?

Is there a reason why your iptables rules can't be used?

How many times do I have to hit your head with a hammer?

On Nov 20, 9:26 am, "D. Stussy" wrote:
> "Sonny" wrote in message
>
> news:5a5ec602-b052-4933-9d60-93a930484342@e25g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > On Nov 19, 3:53 pm, Antoine Junod wrote:
> > > "D. Stussy" writes:
> > > > "Sonny" wrote in message
> > > >news:619b69c6-59ca-4964-9937-a43ae52a14a5@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> > > >> Has anyone here implemented a usage based billing system by sniffing
> > > >> HTTP packets? I tried searching it in the Web but come up short. I
> > > >> just want to know how to do it, i mean, a successful web download has
> > > >> a series of 200 OKs. What is the best indication that a page is
> > > >> successfully downloaded? Thanks.
>
> > > > How about a firewall packet counter?
>
> > > Does it need a lot of CPU resources? Does is slow down the
> > > throughput?
>
> > > Thanks for your reply,
> > > -AJ
>
> > Actually we're just doing a prototype, so far we're checking how many
> > packets for one http transaction, and the http headers that comes
> > along with it. We don't think that it needs a lot of CPU resources
> > though we're expecting many requests with different request for the
> > same web page/file which makes a packet counter kind of difficult to
> > implement. Hmm, is there an open source system which is similar to
> > Cisco's NetFlow?
>
> Is there a reason why your iptables rules can't be used?
>
> How many times do I have to hit your head with a hammer?

Actually, we can use the iptables, but it will be very dirty. We can
set the iptables rule per IP of the user to get the count. But as we
tested the setup, unlike a typical DHCP wherein most of the time, you
will get the same ip, the ip gets changed every time the end device is
turned off. Also, if the client is downloading more than one file at a
time, then it will be harder to monitor.

If we configured the firewall to monitor for example, per ip -and-
per destination host to solve the more-than-one-file scenario then we
will have thousands lines chain in the iptables and that would be very
inefficient I suppose. I forgot to mention, we would be looking at a
potential CIDR /20 number of clients. And unfortunately all clients
will be pointing to this gateway. We can't afford another machine to
serve the clients.

But, I could ask what kind of iptables rule will be most efficient
with this setup?

Regards,