Internet data usage software

zetrotrack000 · 06-29-2017, 09:59 AM

Hi
I have a MIFI device with 100GB data. The device homepage (192.168.1.1) also shows data usage, and here comes the problem. This month on 25th June, my internet suddenly disconnected. The device home was showing that I have used 91GB and still there are 9GBs left. Upon inquiry, the company representative told me that I have used all 100GBs and now have to wait till 1st July for package renewal. He also told me that the data usage report in device homepage is approximate (and not exact).
So my question that is there any network data usage (upload/download) monitoring software which I can use on my PC to monitor my data usage?
Regards

schneidz · 06-29-2017, 10:18 AM

heres my ifconfigs for my desktop and htpc:

Code:

[schneidz@hyper ~]$ ifconfig
enp0s10: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.25  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        inet6 fe80::a3f5:e0e0:15e3:dde6  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 90:fb:a6:47:xx:xx  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 3119578  bytes 1322705825 (1.2 GiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 2390918  bytes 424958877 (405.2 MiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Code:

[schneidz@xbmc ~]$ ifconfig wlp4s0
wlp4s0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.105  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        inet6 fe80::2c20:5279:87f1:6bdf  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 18:5e:0f:9d:xx:xx  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 463430  bytes 620379805 (591.6 MiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 83224  bytes 12028364 (11.4 MiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

i think it resets everytime the network restarts ?

AwesomeMachine · 06-29-2017, 09:16 PM

The ISP might be adding transmission control, arp, boadcast, ACK, and other packets/characters not usually counted as data. OR, the ISP could be lying.

upnort · 06-29-2017, 11:46 PM

If you have only a single computer connected, then vnstat will get you close to the ISP numbers. If you have multiple computers connected, then many home routers these days will monitor usage. I use DD-WRT on my router. The usage reported on the router is always lower than the ISP's numbers, but as AwesomeMachine mentions, the ISP tracks at a different level than most home routers. Nonetheless the numbers are reasonably close.

zetrotrack000 · 06-30-2017, 12:36 PM

Thanks
vnstat is good. How can I reset its statistics?
Regards

zetrotrack000 · 07-01-2017, 09:34 AM

There is difference between modem statistics and vnstat data. Modem data for July 2017 is:

Code:

Total Volume: 434.28MB

and "vnstat -m" data is:

Code:

Recieved: 350.58 MiB
Transmitted: 19.67 Mib
Total: 370.24 Mib

Can anyone help me to understand this?
Regards

schneidz · 07-01-2017, 10:30 AM

i dont have any experience but i think the issue would be if you have a laptop, htpc, video game console, tablet, smart cellular-telefone, ... and you only run vnstat on the laptop then you will probably miss a significant portion of your data usage.

AwesomeMachine · 07-01-2017, 12:52 PM

Vnstat counts user data, that is, actual data. This is usually the most useful. But in your case it isn't. See post #3.

zetrotrack000 · 07-01-2017, 01:04 PM

From Post No. 3:

Quote:

OR, the ISP could be lying.

Agreed to that part.

AwesomeMachine · 07-01-2017, 01:29 PM

User data is the data content of the network traffic. But there is a lot of network traffic that isn't actual data. It's overhead of some sort or another. It is usually most useful to know the amount of actual data traffic, which is what vnstat gives you.

But the ISP wants as little traffic as possible while still giving you the amount they say they do. So, the ISP counts every byte--data content or not--across the network in your total.

If you want to understand better, install wireshark. Monitor some packets, and then look at the different sections of the packets. You'll see there's a lot of bytes within each packet that are not data.

zetrotrack000 · 07-01-2017, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwesomeMachine

User data is the data content of the network traffic. But there is a lot of network traffic that isn't actual data. It's overhead of some sort or another. It is usually most useful to know the amount of actual data traffic, which is what vnstat gives you.

But the ISP wants as little traffic as possible while still giving you the amount they say they do. So, the ISP counts every byte--data content or not--across the network in your total.

If you want to understand better, install wireshark. Monitor some packets, and then look at the different sections of the packets. You'll see there's a lot of bytes within each packet that are not data.

Thanks a lot. I will definitely try wireshark to know about 'what going on here'

AwesomeMachine · 07-01-2017, 07:28 PM

Read the docs for wireshark. You should not run it as root.

zetrotrack000 · 07-02-2017, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwesomeMachine

Read the docs for wireshark. You should not run it as root.

OK. Thanks a lot