Is there a tool we can use that shows how much traffic is flowing in and out of each mesh node?
Even better would be to know not just the total traffic, but the traffic to and from each other node separately.
Bob W8ERD
Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer
There are many standard network management tools which will do this for you. AREDN software supports the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) which these tools use to collect statistics, such as port byte counts and an accurate time stamp, that together are used to calculate what you are looking for. We are hoping someone will package such a tool along with others in a Raspberry Pi image we can distribute.
Andre
Thanks Andre. Unfortunately many of us are not network savvy enough to use these tools.
It would be great if someone made a tool that would run on Windows to do this in a simple way.
Bob W8ERD
Look into PRTG. It is a network monitoring suite with up to 100 sensors with the free noncommercial use license. It runs in windows as a service and is accessible via a nice web GUI. It is super easy to set up as it will scan your network for devices and it then scans each device for SNMP, ping, http, etc.
@KX5DX, how about a quick tutorial video??
I consider this to be serious problem, that we have no simple tool to measure the traffic between nodes.
I feel I am flying blind trying to understand what is going on and where congestion is occuring.
Bob W8ERD
Bob, under mesh status there is a column for neighbors called "TxMbps". This is a great data point to see and compare links, keeping in mind it is one-way from me to the neighbor measure. This value is intended to give a direct indication where congestion or bottlenecks exist. It's not a network wide view, however TxMbps values are directly comparable between links.
TxMbps is a 'throughput' value that proportionally goes down given packet or data loss going across the RF link. The value includes the low level protocol bits. Throughput is really defined at the application layer of the voice or video data level, so keep in mind TxMbps will be higher than an "iperf" or other 'throughput' measuring tool.
Joe AE6XE
So I'm new to this forum and Aredn. Looking at getting our local group interested so I've been watching the forum, and then saw this post. I have a Zabbix server I run here at home to monitor my local switches and internet connection. Looks like if you were to have a Zabbix server setup to monitor the nodes you could then create a mesh map to show node status, link status and link usage. Here is an example of the link between my HP and Cisco switches on my network:
By making a map of the whole mesh and even devices beyond a node could give lots of info quickly.
Chris - KE6MTO
Bob,
Let's work on getting you comfortable with our network management solution. Or consider getting a network guy to join your ranks who has experience in this area. It may be a while before AREDN has any of the data you're looking for native in the node (if ever).
Andre
OK - I would like to try using the AREDN management "solution"
I downloaded the SNMP daemon and it seems to have configured and installed and is running (on an M5). I have not put in any MIB file.
Next I grabbed one one of the many free windows tools (PowerSNMP in this case).
It can ping my network nodes, but does not find any SNMP agent running at the expected address.
If I change the PowerSNMP "local address" to one of my other NIC's, it can find an SNMP agent running in my HP printer and another in my Canon web cam.
what m I doing wrong?
KE2N, there is an out-of-box snmp package installed with a basic MIB in current 3.16.1.0. This is on UDP port 161 in the firewall rules. If another package was loaded, maybe it messed up the configuration?
Oh !
the announcement said "Added support for Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP) " I did not know that the software was actually installed and running.
The mesh that I am on has many nodes running unmolested 3.16.1.0 installs and the program is not finding any of those either. (Can I assume I should be able to find all of them reachable from the NIC's local address?)
Is there a recommended monitoring program that I should try? I uninstalled the one I had and am ready for another attempt.
Ken
ken, others that have been playing with snmp tools may want to jump in here. I've not spent any time with it, so would only be theorizing. UDP broadcasts don't propagate across mesh nodes, so this would probably need to work by spelling out IP Addresses.
Oh, THAT's why my OpenNMS system hasn't been discovering nodes. Thanks for the tip, Joe.
73
Orv W6BI
Thanks for the info. I installed PRTG to try it. I found it very complex and beyond what I can understand. And it is not clear how it would work
with mesh nodes.
Bob W8ERD