router advice

[buggs1a]

I need router advice since untangle can't do what i need.

my isp is very soon going to limits on how much you can download. So what i need is a wireless router for gaming on pc and ps3 and xbox360 plus bandwidth info such as how much you download and upload and a way to set a limit for speed or amount downloaded. i need to say once x amount is downloaded then speed will be x. I know that nothing like this is in anything from dlink linksys or netgear that i know of which sucks.

i also would need AV protection, content filter which is selecting from a list of categories to block porn etc.

I'm not rich so this would have to be something for home users.

Untangle does only the bandwidth info, but it is confusing, hard to use, hard to understand, the reports to me are a plain mess in my opinion. it's ok, but needs a ton of work. untangle however does not in anyway allow you to set up limits etc. so i need that. it's a necessity.

[Lee Sharp]

You have much of this in m0n0wall if you use captive portal, and traffic shaping. It will need to be behind Untangle, and set up to route, not NAT. See the m0n0wall mailing list for details.

[buggs1a]

thanks. but i am not talking linux pc based, but a real router. and i have tried monowall and i hate it. what im talking here is i will not be using untangle since it really has far too many problems and doesn't do what i need. so i need to look elsewhere, but have no idea.

[YeOldeStonecat]

but a real router.

*nix distros can be "real routers". Tons of very expensive enterprise grade products can be "real routers". Traditional home grade off the shelf home grade routers are what you're talking about, and probably won't give you the control you wish. Some have some very basic and partially effective QoS features, but it's not very good.

What "problems" are you having with Untangle?

But honestly, for what you're looking for, Untangle is most likely overkill, it's designed to be for the business, not the gaming performance home user.

For most of the features which you're looking for..except antivirus scanning, I encourage you to not avoid some other *nix distros.

PFSense is what I run at home, it is superior in QoS/Packet Shaping features, and allows me to deprioritize downloading and P2P transfers so when the kid is downloading stuff, it does not affect my gaming. It also allows me to keep a close eye on daily/weekly/monthly total transfers, and allows me to cap certain types of traffic.

Another distro that may be of interest, Endian
It adds antivirus scanning, and built in content filtering, as well as traffic shaping. Very simple to install and manage.

[buggs1a]

I know that linksys and those type won't do what I need which is how come I was asking for some advice and help. The reason I say I need a router is I want all in one with wireless and no nix pc firewall does this that I know of. i've never seen any that have all the built in wireless features you get in a home based device from linksys etc however I might be wrong. I don't mind using a nix/pc firewall if it could do the same as a linksys type except the other features not on the linksys I need. I just haven't seen any.

Untangle has been troublesome for me in that I can't troubleshoot it like I can a home based grade router and find some of it to be not user friendly nor easy to use. It also doesn't have some features I need of course. I like Untangle a lot overall though. I own a Sonicwall TZ180W, but it's far too slow for my network, cost way too much for the security per year and of course does not have the bandwidth feature I mentioned I need. Plus I've had bad luck with their support.

I tried pfsense a long time ago and didn't like it that much as it didn't have any bandwidth up/down etc info at that time and offers no security with AV, Content Filtering from porn blocking category etc. I've looked at Endian sometime last year or the year before and it cost plus no wireless at that time, but i've mentioned up above no nix pc based has wireless that I have seen. However I haven't looked for a long time and don't know them all of course.

I guess I could get a nix pc based firewall with the features and then ad a Wireless AP to it if that was possible. I'd have to be able to log into the wireless AP to config it etc though. I just don't know what nix pc based software to look at.

The feature I'm really getting at that I need is the daily/weekly/monthly bandwidth total for the WAN, but it has to notify me when a certain amount is reached and preferably be able to limit speed once that amount was reached. I know Kerio Winroute firewall does that.

Comcast on OCT1 is going to cap at 250gb now so i need a way to monitor myself and limit my speed when I reach say 200gb or something. But I also need Av and porn category filtering etc. The gaming support too.

I know that this is a lot to ask for, :(. I don't mean to be picky on purpose, or be demanding like, but then you know and understand what one likes they like. What I need i need. However of course i'm willing to work with things too.

Edit, Endian doesn't have ANY bandwidth info. Wasted my time on that one.

Anyhow, I think winroute firewall is the ONLY thing that has bandwidth info with allowing you to set up a limit to notify you once reached and then speed limit. I think Kerio is the only thing that can do that and that feature is what I need.

Edit, PF Sense does not allow you to see amount of download or upload, it only does speed. which is totally useless. I'm there now looking at the info and screens.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Edit, PF Sense does not allow you to see amount of download or upload, it only does speed. which is totally useless. I'm there now looking at the info and screens.

PFSense does show you totals. Status==> RRD Graphs==>Traffic tab. You can see 4 hours, 16 hours, 2 days, 1 month, 6 months, and the past year.

They also have a great plugin called BandwidthD, so you can break down the above into to invidual PCs behing the PFSense box...see which PC does the heaviest loads, and what type of traffic it's using.

I thought Endian had something similar....I ran it at home for a while, can't find their screenshot section now, the new 2.2 version with lots of new features it due out soon.

With *nix distros...so make one a wireless router...you just get a supported PCI based wireless NIC and have it in your machine when you install it.

And wow....if the 250 gig cap that Comcast will be enforcing soon is scaring you...you must be hitting them hard. Glad you don't live on my node. Easy way to avoid it though...upgrade to their biz account.

[buggs1a]

Those PFSense traffic graphs are only for speed though, not how much you use. That is what the screens say on their site though. http://www.pfsense.org/screenshots/
5th image. Unless there's something missing from the screenshot.

But anyhow there's no way in pfsense that I can see for it to tell you once you reach a certain point and then limit your speed, :(

Endian has a nice UI, but nothing for bandwidth amount. I logged into their online demo and looked at everything except hotspot and vpn. Never saw bandwidth anything.

Business account is their solution. Money.

[Silver Bullet]

You get daily reports in Untangle that show bandwidth usage. It's not reactive. You could probably install a bandwidth monitoring tool though that would give output just like this
eth0 / monthly

month rx | tx | total
-------------------------+--------------+--------------------------------------
Aug '08 6.09 GB | 1.19 GB | 7.28 GB %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%::::
Sep '08 3.71 GB | 148.43 MB | 3.85 GB %%%%%%%%%%%
-------------------------+--------------+--------------------------------------
estimated 63.55 GB | 2.48 GB | 66.03 GB

then write a script to check the total bandwidth used every hour or so and if it reaches your ISP limit, then have it insert a iptables rule that drops internet traffic.

That's the great thing about open source projects.... "YOU" get to do anything you want it to do. You just have to use your imagination.

Good luck!

[buggs1a]

You can do this in Untangle if you know how to write the code? That's awesome! However I don't know anything about coding or linux or scripting etc. I only know the basics and how to use my mouse and clicker, :)

Buit yeah it'd be perfect to write something to say at 200gb download in a month drop speed to say 1mb and also email me to notify me that I've reached 200gb and the speed is being dropped. If I knew how to do that i'd do it in a heart beat with Untangle.

I like the reporting info in Untangle, it's just sometimes confusing, hard to use until I figured it out at least and then it doesn't show bandwidth use in a way that I'd like to see. I'm not exactly sure what way that is though.

[Silver Bullet]

What do you mean? Untangle reports shows Total Daily/Weekly/Monthly Inbound in MB/GB and Total Daily/Weekly/Monthly Outbound in MB/GB. What is difficult about that. You're not going to get any simpler than that.

There was once when I didn't know how to write a script or anything about Linux, but when I needed something and that something wasn't out there... well I used google until I learned what I needed.

Here is a good place to start on the scripting stuff.
http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/

Let us know how it goes.

[buggs1a]

I am talking about the look of it, not what Untangle shows and stuff. That's all. And it's not easy for me until I figured out how to use the reports and how to get it to show what i wanted to see. Then it was easy :)

I'm not the kind to be able to learn scripting etc as I don't have the patience nor mentality.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Those PFSense traffic graphs are only for speed though, not how much you use. Unless there's something missing from the screenshot..

The "BandwidthD" plugin which I mentioned...it does give you "totals"...I run it at home.
http://bandwidthd.sourceforge.net/

It's an easy to install "plugin" for PFSense, although after looking at their page..curious if it could be setup with anything else. Seems like it.

On the native PFSense graphs...I was under the assumption that the last column, "Period", was the total traffic for that time period.

[buggs1a]

but still it doesn't help with inputting a limit etc and i don't like the guys making pf sense and i don't like their community nor the distro itself.

anyhow I'm talking hardware not software so if no one has a clue then fine. ok.

yeah i just looked at the traffic screenshot again and noticed the amount downloaded or uploaded at the far right. i didn't see that before, honest, :) hehe.

[Lee Sharp]

but still it doesn't help with inputting a limit etc and i don't like the guys making pf sense and i don't like their community nor the distro itself.
Not sure how to help you. First, you could try one of the ddwrt distributions in a WRT54G for an all in one box, but they have less power than I like. You can use per user bandwidth limits in the captive portal on m0n0wall, and it has a up/down total on the interface status page. It can do WiFi, but it stinks. I like using best of breed components anyway, and not trying to make one box that does it all poorly.

[buggs1a]

Yeah i'm having no idea what can tell you how much you download, allow you to input a number then email to alert you and then allow you to limit download speed once that was reached. Kerio Winroute firewall does this and pretty much everything I like, but cost is way rip off in my opinion and it's software for windows. icky.

This is directly exactly what i'm talking about. Also this can be done on a global basis too.

User traffic quota
Some users download a lot of files, listen to Internet radios, and share family movies with others. Excessive Internet browsing by one user often affects the usability of the Internet connection for the rest of the team.

To put a cap on heavy users, administrators may impose user traffic quotas. Administrators have a few options:

* quota for upload, download or both
* quota per day or per month
* or any combination of the above

When the quota is reached, Kerio WinRoute Firewall will send an email warning to the user and the administrator. Optionally, Kerio WinRoute Firewall can block the guilty user for the rest of the day or month.

It also lets you speed limit the network wan connection or the specific user. I put that in myself cus it can do that.

[buggs1a]

I've got a Comcast business account now with their crappy SMC gateway. They took out 99% of the features. It royally sucks and they won't let you use a modem only. I've got their 16mb/2mb account.

You can't even easily connect yer own router to the gateway. At least I aint figured it out yet. But then I spose it don't matter considering I can't think of what router to use.

[YeOldeStonecat]

I've got a Comcast business account now with their crappy SMC gateway. They took out 99% of the features. It royally sucks and they won't let you use a modem only. I've got their 16mb/2mb account.

You can't even easily connect yer own router to the gateway. At least I aint figured it out yet. But then I spose it don't matter considering I can't think of what router to use.

You can bypass the SMC build in routing features....you simply plug the WAN inteface of whatever you use as a router into one of the LAN ports of the SMC, configure the WAN interface of your router with the static public IP information Comcast gives you with your business account, you log into the SMC and drop its firewall...and blammmo.....you're up and running on your own router, the SMC simply ip maps your public IP to your own device.

[Lee Sharp]

You need either a standard docsis device, or a static IP. They will give you a standard docsis device in Houston. If they say no to you, ask why... Could be they want the extra $5 a month for the static IP address.

[wharfratjoe]

endian has bandwidth graph's (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly). I have been using endian for over two years. It also has traffic shaping. not sure if thats what you are looking for. Why dont you install the latest version (2.2.RC3)and check it out.

[PROACTIVENS]

You have to call comcast and tell them to put the device into bridge mode. They do it remotely via a low level mac connection. That will turn off NAT and allow your router to obtain the live IP address for the internet. You do not have to have a static IP to do this. You can also log in to the thing and take a look at the config.
in a browser window type in 10.1.10.1
username: cusadmin
password: highspeed

[dknyinva]

try looking into 3rd party firmware like dd-wrt for wireless router like linksys, buffalo, etc..