Hi
I have a project to evaluate.
I have more than 1000 routers moving on vehicles serving as hotspot. They're connected to 4G. I need to periodically (say, every hour) read the uptime, traffic consumption, clients connected, know if they're alive,...
What's your advice or recommendation?
Regards

The dude.

The dude.

Thanks jarda. I'll check it!

The dude.

Using The dude means that I have to install the package for all those routers? That would be troublesome... But the effort can be done if it's worth doing it.
How about the data usage of the dude (remember that it's a 4G connection with capped data)? I need to monitor some parameters only. The dude seems to be overkill because of all the data that's transferred between the router and The dude PC.
How about monitoring via SNMP?

The dude.

oops...
The routers are rb951ui-2hnd... so The Dude can't help me...

The dude.

oops...
The routers are rb951ui-2hnd... so The Dude can't help me...

The Dude can use SNMP too.

Hi
I have a project to evaluate.
I have more than 1000 routers moving on vehicles serving as hotspot. They're connected to 4G. I need to periodically (say, every hour) read the uptime, traffic consumption, clients connected, know if they're alive,...
What's your advice or recommendation?
Regards

Sounds pretty straight forward and somewhat easy to do.

1st - to Monitor your remote monitors are on-line. I use a Windows program called "WhatsUp Gold". There are many different types of network monitors available. Some are free and some you have to pay for. The most important part here is that you want to be notified/alerted when a router is off-line. Optional - my network monitor also alerts me if my connected clients drop below a threshold of connected clients that I know I should always have connected.

2nd - graphing the counters on your remote routers. I use a free program called Cacti. Cacti runs on the Linus OS. My Cacti graphs all kinds of stuff - including the following:
- Number of connected users/clients on my APs
- Bandwidth used on every interface (LAN & wireless)
- Optional , voltage , temperature , CPU utilization/busy , interface error counts
--- Heck , I have even had my Cacti graphing how much propane I have in my remote mountain top propane tanks for my generators.
With Cacti, you can look at the last 5 minutes, you can look at the last day, week, month, year -- or you can look at only a month that happened 6-months ago.

North Idaho Tom Jones

Hi
I have a project to evaluate.
I have more than 1000 routers moving on vehicles serving as hotspot. They're connected to 4G. I need to periodically (say, every hour) read the uptime, traffic consumption, clients connected, know if they're alive,...
What's your advice or recommendation?
Regards

Sounds pretty straight forward and somewhat easy to do.

1st - to Monitor your remote monitors are on-line. I use a Windows program called "WhatsUp Gold". There are many different types of network monitors available. Some are free and some you have to pay for. The most important part here is that you want to be notified/alerted when a router is off-line. Optional - my network monitor also alerts me if my connected clients drop below a threshold of connected clients that I know I should always have connected.

2nd - graphing the counters on your remote routers. I use a free program called Cacti. Cacti runs on the Linus OS. My Cacti graphs all kinds of stuff - including the following:
- Number of connected users/clients on my APs
- Bandwidth used on every interface (LAN & wireless)
- Optional , voltage , temperature , CPU utilization/busy , interface error counts
--- Heck , I have even had my Cacti graphing how much propane I have in my remote mountain top propane tanks for my generators.
With Cacti, you can look at the last 5 minutes, you can look at the last day, week, month, year -- or you can look at only a month that happened 6-months ago.

North Idaho Tom Jones

So, do you think that SNMP is the best choice? Whatsup Gold seems pretty expensive for 1000 devices http://www.ipswitchworks.com/WhatsUp-Gold-Standard.asp
On the free side of life there's NetXMS. Anyone with experience with RouterOS+NetXMS combo?

Hi
I have a project to evaluate.
I have more than 1000 routers moving on vehicles serving as hotspot. They're connected to 4G. I need to periodically (say, every hour) read the uptime, traffic consumption, clients connected, know if they're alive,...
What's your advice or recommendation?
Regards

Sounds pretty straight forward and somewhat easy to do.

1st - to Monitor your remote monitors are on-line. I use a Windows program called "WhatsUp Gold". There are many different types of network monitors available. Some are free and some you have to pay for. The most important part here is that you want to be notified/alerted when a router is off-line. Optional - my network monitor also alerts me if my connected clients drop below a threshold of connected clients that I know I should always have connected.

2nd - graphing the counters on your remote routers. I use a free program called Cacti. Cacti runs on the Linus OS. My Cacti graphs all kinds of stuff - including the following:
- Number of connected users/clients on my APs
- Bandwidth used on every interface (LAN & wireless)
- Optional , voltage , temperature , CPU utilization/busy , interface error counts
--- Heck , I have even had my Cacti graphing how much propane I have in my remote mountain top propane tanks for my generators.
With Cacti, you can look at the last 5 minutes, you can look at the last day, week, month, year -- or you can look at only a month that happened 6-months ago.

North Idaho Tom Jones

So, do you think that SNMP is the best choice? Whatsup Gold seems pretty expensive for 1000 devices http://www.ipswitchworks.com/WhatsUp-Gold-Standard.asp
On the free side of life there's NetXMS. Anyone with experience with RouterOS+NetXMS combo?

Re: ... Whatsup Gold seems expensive ...
I have two of them. One is a new licenses by number of devices it monitors -and- my other older monitor dates back to when they had older version that were un-limited.
Many of the options for other monitors mostly come down to price and what you want it to do.

Re: ... SNMP ...
For SNMP, you can have your network monitor and Cacti perform polls & ICMP pings to your remote routers. Ping to simply test if the remote device is alive and poll SNMP to get counters.
Also, most network devices/routers can send SNMP traps to a network receiver - such as your network monitor. Traps alert you right away and polling might take a few minutes to Poll to get the alert.

For a very very simple ICMP ping network monitor, take a look at Netwatch already in every Mikrotik ROS router. It is pretty decent for quick/simple/dirty to get it working.

also - for graphing - quick, simple & dirty , in Winbox , on each ROS device , go to Tools - Graphing - Interface Rules and hit the blue + and add it. The mikrotik will begin graphing some bandwidth counters which you can come back to and see how much traffic an inteface had on it in the past history.

North Idaho Tom Jones

I have more than 1000 routers moving on vehicles serving as hotspot. They're connected to 4G. I need to periodically (say, every hour) read the uptime, traffic consumption, clients connected, know if

Did that for public transport system in big Mexican city. Using openwrt-based devices, also delivering local content (movies, music etc.)
Remote stats done using collectd. Impossible on MT, because closed.
One more reason, that MT not the solution of choice for hotspots with advanced features.
It is not a good idea, first to choose the hw, and then trying to squeeze required sw-functionality into it.
In case of interest in tech details, contact augustus_meyerATyahoo.de

I have more than 1000 routers moving on vehicles serving as hotspot. They're connected to 4G. I need to periodically (say, every hour) read the uptime, traffic consumption, clients connected, know if

Did that for public transport system in big Mexican city. Using openwrt-based devices, also delivering local content (movies, music etc.)

Same idea here. Hotspot redirects to a page (without user/pass) and serves the first video that must be seen complete. Then, redirects to free web.

Remote stats done using collectd. Impossible on MT, because closed.

Can't collectd be used with SNMP? Stats needed are basic here. Maybe connected users and total used data (for all users). Can't this be done with SNMP or the Dude?

One more reason, that MT not the solution of choice for hotspots with advanced features.

Hotspot is practically absent, as said, so no problem here.

It is not a good idea, first to choose the hw, and then trying to squeeze required sw-functionality into it.

It is not for us to choose the HW . That's given by our partners... So, it has to be done with MT devices, and I have to find a solution with it.

In case of interest in tech details, contact augustus_meyerATyahoo.de

Thanks! I'll contact you later!

The dude does need to run only on one server device, no need to install anything everywhere. Dude supports SNMP and it is possible to freely set the polling interval so it can consume very low bandwidth in total. It worth to try before investing in some other option.

Thanks again jarda, I'm already on it. Right now using a virtual machine. If it's ok, we'll see if we buy a router able to handle it or buy a license.

Djago

Same idea here. Hotspot redirects to a page (without user/pass) and serves the first video that must be seen complete. Then, redirects to free web.

We do much more: Local server to serve real movies, music, simple games, local news etc. from web-site within device. For entertainment of user (to save on 3g/4g-costs !).
In production already.
Actually, evaluating computer assisted learning, in coop with local university.

No wonder why you chose another solution than MT! That's advanced stuff for our needs!

wifibus.com.mx
Why to block the path to evolution, by starting too limited ?
You might convince the client about alternative hw, and its possibilities.
I.e. we also do GPS tracking of busses,of course.
And, I do not know cost structure of 3g/4g in your area, but it might be quite expensive.
So the users have alternatives, when traffic quota exceeded: Check the local content (incl. ads for work

Hi!

I've been busy looking at a couple of things, including The Dude.
One of the things I need to be able to do is to analyze the data monitored. Take for example the number of connected clients at a given time. It would be nice to have the data and then analyze it. That could bring me some insight into average trip duration (assuming that the client connects for the whole trip), busiest hours (assuming the same ratio of passengers/connected passengers along the day), and so on.
Now the problem seems to be: how to extract the info from The Dude? As far as I can see and search, the only thing I can export from The Dude is graphics, but not data. Am I right? If that's so, then I need The Dude to manage/update/config/... all the routers, and another program that allows me to extract data (perhaps an SNMP data collector).

Any thoughts?

We use CloudView NMS www.cloudviewnms.com to monitor 1500 MikroTik devices via SNMP. MikroTik devices support SNMP including several important standard MIBs for Layer-2 and Layer-3. Correspondingly, using CloudView NMS, you can monitor ports link status, ports traffic load and CPU load: all with ability to set threshold e-mail/SMS alerts. Security is important for routers, so we use SNMPv3 (secure SNMP). There is one important detail, when using MIcrotik SNMPv3: make sure you set unique "SNMP Engine ID" for every device via it's web Interface. For some reason, MikroTik uses the same default "SNMP Engine ID" for all the devices and this may create issues, if not set properly.

What I have did in my network with about 500 Routers that are using dynamic wan IP, thinking SNMP will not help me!
So I got this solution: Setup and SNMP monitoring server with http://www.observium.org/free and works very good (last update automatic 1 script Installation).
Got one central Mikrotik Routerboard RB1100AHx4 with Public Fixed IP, configure it as L2TP Server.
All distributed RB connect to Main one and give them a LAN IP just for monitoring, then monitor them with Observium!
So I monitoring my devices 24h/24 and also monitor them from a secured private link.

Splunk can handle may routers. I have just set it up for more simple to use in my project using Splunk for MikroTik routers.

One nice thing with it, is that it does not use SNMP (SNMP is good at many things, but does not like dynamic IP).
You just add a script to each router that do send you all the info you need periodically.
I do assume you could make a master config and install it using netinstall before shipping the routers.

It worth test it out, hva a look at link in my signature, or here:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=137338

Dude would be a great tool to monitor a large amount of routers - if - if - if Dude has support for IPv6