Monitoring Network Bandwidth Usage - Netgear DG834G

[IonMan]

Hi all, I've been trying to setup some sort of program to let me keep track of how much my household has downloaded on a monthly basis. This is in the hopes that we can avoid running over our monthly limit, and so having our connection speed throttled to an unbearable level; as we've suffered from recently.

I currently have PRTG Network Monitor installed, but I've only been able to get it to track ping/response times and my own computer's usage, not the whole network as I know it's capable of.
NOTE: Even if you have no knowledge of PRTG, I'm open to suggestions on other programs that might do the job.

I found the below solution on these forums and followed the instructions:

Here are the steps guys:

1) Access your router on http://192.168.0.1/snmp.htm
2) Enable SNMP and make your community name 'public'. Click Apply.
3) Type in the address bar: http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=debug (it will say "Debug enabled").
4) Click Start, Run, type in 'cmd' to get a command prompt.
5) Type 'telnet 192.168.0.1' (You will see a BusyBox shell prompt).
6) type 'iptables -D INPUT 1' at the # prompt (this disables SNMP blocking).

That's it, your router will now respond to SNMP requests on port 161. Get yourself a program like PRTG and hook it up, remember that your community string is 'public' but PRTG should default to that anyway.

Of course if your router has a different IP address simply replace 192.168.0.1 in all the steps above with whatever your router's IP is.

You can find the original post in full here: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...P-Capabilities?p=733116&viewfull=1#post733116

As I say, I followed these instructions but when I tried to add a sensor in PRTG for Bandwidth Monitoring(as SNMP traffic) it still wouldn't work. Saying:

Sorry, the scan for available monitoring items has failed!

Error Message:"No response (check: firewalls, routing, snmp settings of device, IPs, SNMP version, community, passwords etc) (SNMP error # -2003)"

Furthermore, inputting those settings to my router seemed to stop me from being able to load it's page(192.168.0.1). All I seem to get is a blank page, and it seems PRTG had the same problem, as it didnt seem to be able to even Ping the router anymore.
The only solution I found to that was turning off the router(pulling out the power cable) and then turning it back on. So, it seems the problem isn't just with PRTG.

So, that's where I'm at.
Hope someone can help.
Cheers.

P.S. Note to the Mods: I have posted this in both the "Networking and Security" forum(since that seems the apropriate place), aswell as the "ADSL Discussions" forum(since thats where I found the aforementioned thread). If one of them needs to be deleted then so be it, but I'd hope they could both remain, so that I might have a better chance of finding a solution.
Thank you.

 

[Grep]

Step number 1 is to see if you can actually walk the router with something else besides PRTG, there are a few SNMP walkers *free* that will do the job. I only say this because PRTG has been a bitch since V5, secondly please remember that SNMP on the DG834's are not actually supported on these routers, back in the day with older firmware it worked like a charm but not anymore. For me they work for about 2/3 days and then it stops, lord alone knows why.

Lastly I would suggest leaving the 834 in modem mode and chuck a linux box as a gateway and do all your monitoring from there, that will give you the reporting you really need.