router stats

moving on from my last post.

i have a bt homehub2 and i would like to make use of routerstats but i cant see if it will work.

i have tried some of the tools on this site but they wont accept it as i have a dynamic ip address.

linewise im pretty clued up and spot on but i need more education with other aspects, can anyone point me in a direction which may help

ta

Routerstats lite should work with the HH.

What do you want to know, plenty of folks here happy to spread the knowledge they have.

In reply to a post by Rockh:

Routerstats lite should work with the HH.

What do you want to know, plenty of folks here happy to spread the knowledge they have.

how to set up routerstats. im learning all the time reading about others issues. im on an information super search lol, so that i can be better at what i do

i tried downloading it there but didnt seem to work. may be worth mentioning i am using macbook

Oh you lot and your mac's Awkward lot . The lad who developed Router Stats is found on here, John_On is his nick IIRC.

In reply to a post by andyboygsi:

i tried downloading it there but didnt seem to work. may be worth mentioning i am using macbook

You may be able to get it to work on a mac using wine - see http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=1716.0 and http://www.winehq.org/

But it may be easier to buy a proper computer _{instead of a toy}

John_ON should be able to confirm, but I don't think RSL works with the HH2.

Access to the web GUI of the HH2 uses a rather convoluted authentication method involving JavaScript, MD5 hashes, one-shot passwords and cookies, rather than 'simple' authentication (i.e. the usual pop-up to enter a user name and password) that most routers - including the HH1 - use.

Consequently, I don't think RSL will be able to 'logon' and access the stats page.

ill pm him, i need an idiots guide i am afraid

are there any routers out there i can buy that do this sort of thing themselves.

Oh dear. http://www.psidoc.com/showthread.php/7-How-to-hack-o...

Netgear works well with Routerstats (on a PC)

As in monitor the line stats and create graphs?
Not sure, but I'm not aware of any.

It is possible to track and graph results with the BTHH2 with a dedicated Linux-based box like this, but is likely not practical for your purposes.

MRTG can be run on a MAC.

But won't be able to access the BTHH2, as Telnet is not possible and no SNMP.

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Jan-11 19:38:12)

Yet that is what it is. Odd.

Oh, hang on

1. wget retrieves the page with the stats we are looking for (in my case Signal to Noise ratio and Downstream Power level)
"-O -" option pipes it to the next program
2. grep is used to select the line(s) having the selected pattern
3. awk selects the required string
4. Next grep selects the line we wanted (the first grep actually gets two lines0
5. Finally sed selects just the number part of the string for mrtg to process

It's actually a 'mod' for Smoothwall.

I wrote the perl script for the BTHH2, which uses the web interface.

So you should know it uses MRTG

It doesn't...

RRDtool / MRTG same difference

RRDtool 'merely' (in the politest possible sense, as it's actually pretty comprehensive) creates graphs from data.
MRTG uses SNMP traps to gather data from IP devices, which it then passes to RRDtool to present in graphical format.

The mod I referred to earlier doesn't use MRTG, but it does use RRDtool to create the graphs.
The 'data gathering' part is bespoke though, although like MRTG, is also perl based.

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Jan-11 21:23:28)

Does it retrieve the router stats by querying the HTML stats page (or via telnet) ?

It gets the information from the HTML source - after jumping through several convoluted hoops in order to logon to the router.
There is no Telnet functionality with the HH2.

I posted the link earlier to the telnet hack.

I don't think it should be a requirement that a user needs to perform some hack on their router in order to use such a tool, although if they want to (and write their own scripts to extract the data), they are of course free to do so at their own risk.

It took me some considerable time to figure out the authentication and logon process for the HH2 and emulate it with perl, but it doesn't create any risk for the user.

The worst that is likely to happen is 'it doesn't work', rather than potentially kill their router in the same way that a hack could if it goes wrong.

True. Sounds like a damn good hack btw.

how do i do it then?

ta

TBH, unless you want to delve into the world of Linux, it will probably be far easier and simpler just to use a different router that Router Stats or RSL works with.

In reply to a post by andyboygsi:

how do i do it then?

ta

It's not easy as so many things are against you. Your PC doesn't run windows, so a lot of free tools aren't available to you. Your router does not simply present the required stats to you so graphing of them will be almost impossible. But all you need to know to do this has been already covered in this thread. However, there may be other ways which I'm unaware of.

short of a step by step guide im [censored]. line issues i can deal with. computers i cannot

Unfortunately, a step-by-step guide would be like the recipe for Moose Mousse:
1. Take one medium-sized Moose.

I mean, steps could be written, but doing them would be challenging.

1. Install MRTG
2. Install PERL.
3. Obtain Panda's hack to get stats.
4. Schedule a task to get and store stats.
5. Configure MRTG to graph stats
6. Display graphs.

The difficulty is that there isn't a simple and easy solution for you.

Using a Mac means you don't have the same options of monitoring programs as a Windows user and using the HH2 complicates things further due to its unorthadox method of autentication.

It likely is possible to do what you want, but will involve considerable complexity
e.g. installing WINE or using Bootcamp to allow use of Windows programs on a Mac, then tweaking the programs to overcome the HH2 issues.

IMHO, it just wouldn't be worth the pain and frustration of going down this route if you are not comfortable with computers and have some experience of script writing/tweaking.

If you really want to be able to monitor and graph your DSL performance, it will be far easier to get an old (second hand, cheap?) Windows machine and a different router, so you can run RS/RSL easily.

Certainly not the most financially economical solution, but in terms of frustration and hair loss, with be far less troublesome.

It's really up to you which path - if any - you choose to take.