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vnstat on EdgeRouter – historical bandwidth monitoring and graphical dashboard tutorial

Stanislav KhromovStanislav Khromov

This post will show you how to install vnstat and vnstati on the EdgeRouter for bandwidth monitoring, as well as how to create a graphical dashboardwith historical bandwidth data.

Installation

Add non-free sources to APT:

EdgeOS 1.X

configure
set system package repository wheezy components 'main contrib non-free' 
set system package repository wheezy distribution wheezy 
set system package repository wheezy url http://archive.debian.org/debian
commit ; save
sudo apt-get update

EdgeOS 2.X

configure
set system package repository stretch components 'main contrib non-free' 
set system package repository stretch distribution stretch
set system package repository stretch url http://http.us.debian.org/debian
commit ; save
sudo apt-get update

Install the packages

sudo apt-get install vnstat vnstati

vnstat configuration

Edit the config file in /etc/vnstat.conf to be like the following. This will make sure your bandwidth data will survive a firmware update. (However, you’ll have to reinstall and reconfigure vnstat / vnstati after a firmware update).

Click to expand your relevant configuration:

EdgeOS 1.X configuration

# vnStat 1.11 config file
##

# default interface
Interface "eth0"

# location of the database directory
DatabaseDir "/var/lib/vnstat"

# locale (LC_ALL) ("-" = use system locale)
Locale "-"

# on which day should months change
MonthRotate 1

# date output formats for -d, -m, -t and -w
# see 'man date' for control codes
DayFormat    "%x"
MonthFormat  "%b '%y"
TopFormat    "%x"

# characters used for visuals
RXCharacter       "%"
TXCharacter       ":"
RXHourCharacter   "r"
TXHourCharacter   "t"

# how units are prefixed when traffic is shown
# 0 = IEC standard prefixes (KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB)
# 1 = old style binary prefixes (KB/MB/GB/TB)
UnitMode 0

# output style
# 0 = minimal & narrow, 1 = bar column visible
# 2 = same as 1 except rate in summary and weekly
# 3 = rate column visible
OutputStyle 3

# used rate unit (0 = bytes, 1 = bits)
RateUnit 1

# maximum bandwidth (Mbit) for all interfaces, 0 = disable feature
# (unless interface specific limit is given)
MaxBandwidth 1000

# interface specific limits
#  example 8Mbit limit for eth0 (remove # to activate):
#MaxBWeth0 8

# how many seconds should sampling for -tr take by default
Sampletime 5

# default query mode
# 0 = normal, 1 = days, 2 = months, 3 = top10
# 4 = dumpdb, 5 = short, 6 = weeks, 7 = hours
QueryMode 0

# filesystem disk space check (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
CheckDiskSpace 1

# database file locking (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
UseFileLocking 1

# how much the boot time can variate between updates (seconds)
BootVariation 15

# log days without traffic to daily list (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
TrafficlessDays 1


# vnstatd
##

# how often (in seconds) interface data is updated
UpdateInterval 30

# how often (in seconds) interface status changes are checked
PollInterval 5

# how often (in minutes) data is saved to file
SaveInterval 60

# how often (in minutes) data is saved when all interface are offline
OfflineSaveInterval 60

# force data save when interface status changes (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
SaveOnStatusChange 0

# enable / disable logging (0 = disabled, 1 = logfile, 2 = syslog)
UseLogging 1

# file used for logging if UseLogging is set to 1
LogFile "/var/log/vnstat.log"

# file used as daemon pid / lock file
PidFile "/var/run/vnstat.pid"


# vnstati
##

# title timestamp format
HeaderFormat "%x %H:%M"

# show hours with rate (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
HourlyRate 1

# show rate in summary (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
SummaryRate 1

# layout of summary (1 = with monthly, 0 = without monthly)
SummaryLayout 1

# transparent background (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
TransparentBg 0

# image colors
CBackground     "FFFFFF"
CEdge           "AEAEAE"
CHeader         "606060"
CHeaderTitle    "FFFFFF"
CHeaderDate     "FFFFFF"
CText           "000000"
CLine           "B0B0B0"
CLineL          "-"
CRx             "92CF00"
CTx             "606060"
CRxD            "-"
CTxD            "-"

EdgeOS 2.X configuration

# vnStat 1.15 config file
##

# default interface
Interface "eth0"

# location of the database directory
DatabaseDir "/var/lib/vnstat"

# locale (LC_ALL) ("-" = use system locale)
Locale "-"

# on which day should months change
MonthRotate 1

# date output formats for -d, -m, -t and -w
# see 'man date' for control codes
DayFormat    "%x"
MonthFormat  "%b '%y"
TopFormat    "%x"

# characters used for visuals
RXCharacter       "%"
TXCharacter       ":"
RXHourCharacter   "r"
TXHourCharacter   "t"

# how units are prefixed when traffic is shown
# 0 = IEC standard prefixes (KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB)
# 1 = old style binary prefixes (KB/MB/GB/TB)
UnitMode 0

# output style
# 0 = minimal & narrow, 1 = bar column visible
# 2 = same as 1 except rate in summary and weekly
# 3 = rate column visible
OutputStyle 3

# used rate unit (0 = bytes, 1 = bits)
RateUnit 1

# try to detect interface maximum bandwidth, 0 = disable feature
# MaxBandwidth will be used as fallback value when enabled
BandwidthDetection 1

# maximum bandwidth (Mbit) for all interfaces, 0 = disable feature
# (unless interface specific limit is given)
MaxBandwidth 1000

# interface specific limits
#  example 8Mbit limit for eth0 (remove # to activate):
#MaxBWeth0 8

# how many seconds should sampling for -tr take by default
Sampletime 5

# default query mode
# 0 = normal, 1 = days, 2 = months, 3 = top10
# 4 = exportdb, 5 = short, 6 = weeks, 7 = hours
QueryMode 0

# filesystem disk space check (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
CheckDiskSpace 1

# database file locking (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
UseFileLocking 1

# how much the boot time can variate between updates (seconds)
BootVariation 15

# log days without traffic to daily list (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
TrafficlessDays 1


# vnstatd
##

# switch to given user when started as root (leave empty to disable)
DaemonUser ""

# switch to given user when started as root (leave empty to disable)
DaemonGroup ""

# how often (in seconds) interface data is updated
UpdateInterval 30

# how often (in seconds) interface status changes are checked
PollInterval 5

# how often (in minutes) data is saved to file
SaveInterval 60

# how often (in minutes) data is saved when all interface are offline
OfflineSaveInterval 60

# how often (in minutes) bandwidth detection is redone when
# BandwidthDetection is enabled (0 = disabled)
BandwidthDetectionInterval 5

# force data save when interface status changes (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
SaveOnStatusChange 0

# enable / disable logging (0 = disabled, 1 = logfile, 2 = syslog)
UseLogging 2

# create dirs if needed (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
CreateDirs 1

# update ownership of files if needed (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
UpdateFileOwner 1

# file used for logging if UseLogging is set to 1
#LogFile "/var/log/vnstat/vnstat.log"
LogFile "/var/log/vnstat.log"

# file used as daemon pid / lock file
#PidFile "/var/run/vnstat/vnstat.pid"
PidFile "/var/run/vnstat.pid"

# vnstati
##

# title timestamp format
HeaderFormat "%x %H:%M"

# show hours with rate (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
HourlyRate 1

# show rate in summary (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
SummaryRate 1

# layout of summary (1 = with monthly, 0 = without monthly)
SummaryLayout 1

# transparent background (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled)
TransparentBg 0

# image colors
CBackground     "FFFFFF"
CEdge           "AEAEAE"
CHeader         "606060"
CHeaderTitle    "FFFFFF"
CHeaderDate     "FFFFFF"
CText           "000000"
CLine           "B0B0B0"
CLineL          "-"
CRx             "92CF00"
CTx             "606060"
CRxD            "-"
CTxD            "-"

Using vnstat

Monthly bandwidth

vnstat -m -i eth0

Daily bandwidth

vnstat -d -i eth0

Live bandwidth usage

vnstat -l -i eth0

Configure vnstati to generate images for bandwidth dashboard

Create the file /var/lib/vnstat/vnstati-update.sh (for example using vi which is included with EdgeOS) with the content:

#!/bin/bash
vnstati -s -i eth0 -o /tmp/vnstat-summary.png
vnstati -h -i eth0 -o /tmp/vnstat-hourly.png
vnstati -m -i eth0 -o /tmp/vnstat-monthly.png
vnstati -d -i eth0 -o /tmp/vnstat-daily.png

Make it executable:

chmod +x /var/lib/vnstat/vnstati-update.sh

Schedule the script to run every hour to keep the images up to date:

crontab -e

Add the line:

0 * * * * /var/lib/vnstat/vnstati-update.sh

Run the script manually once so the first images are generated:

/var/lib/vnstat/vnstati-update.sh

Now it’s time for the last step, symlinking the images generated in the /tmp folder into the webroot of the Web UI. Run:

ln -s /tmp/vnstat-summary.png /var/www/htdocs/media/vnstat-summary.png
ln -s /tmp/vnstat-hourly.png /var/www/htdocs/media/vnstat-hourly.png
ln -s /tmp/vnstat-monthly.png /var/www/htdocs/media/vnstat-monthly.png
ln -s /tmp/vnstat-daily.png /var/www/htdocs/media/vnstat-daily.png

Set up a dashboard

Create the file /var/www/htdocs/media/dashboard.html (For example you can use vi which is included in EdgeOS)

Add the content below. Replace 192.168.10.1 with your router IP.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>BW Dashboard</title>
    <style>
        body {
            text-align: center;
        }
    </style>
</head>

<body>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<img src="https://192.168.10.1/media/vnstat-summary.png">

<h3>24 hour</h3>
<img src="https://192.168.10.1/media/vnstat-hourly.png">

<h3>Monthly</h3>
<img src="https://192.168.10.1/media/vnstat-monthly.png">

<h4>Monthly</h4>
<img src="https://192.168.10.1/media/vnstat-daily.png">
</body>
</html>

Now you can visit your dashboard at https://192.168.10.1/media/dashboard.html (replace with your router IP).

Now let’s Marvel at the results!

Cleanup

sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get autoclean && sudo apt-get autoremove && rm /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin /var/cache/apt/srcpkgcache.bin

More reading

https://community.ubnt.com/t5/EdgeRouter/data-usage-monitoring-using-vnstat-cli-only-HOWTO/td-p/1061213

Related posts

  1. Raspberry Pi Shairport build instructions
  2. Automatic dynamic DNS updater using EdgeRouter / EdgeOS and Internet.bs
  3. Enable logging of DNS queries in Unbound DNS resolver
  4. UnixBench benchmarks for ODroid-U2, Raspberry Pi, AMD Sempron and Intel Core i3
Linux
Stanislav Khromov
Author

Full-stack impostor syndrome sufferer & Software Engineer at Schibsted Media Group

Comments 11
  • George
    Posted on

    George George

    Reply Author

    Thanks for the useful write-up, Stanislav. This configuration is writing data to the flash drive on the router. Aren’t you worried about read-write wear? Could you clarify which line exactly preserves the vnstat database on firmware updates?

  • Brian
    Posted on

    Brian Brian

    Reply Author

    I’m storing my files in /var/log – which is in memory – and backing those up to flash daily. Here are my scripts based off of your code above: https://gist.github.com/bdwilson/861628d2e5dd0587f668ace15f92819d. Files/backups are stored in /config/vnstat.

    restore.sh is called if the device receives an upgrade (via script in /config/scripts/post-config.d) as well as via vnstat.init

    • Stanislav Khromov
      Posted on

      Stanislav Khromov Stanislav Khromov

      Reply Author

      That’s so great Brian, thank you for the improvements to the original scripts!

      • Brian
        Posted on

        Brian Brian

        Reply Author

        I’ve added a few other changes that someone else provided me, so I’ve put those and installers on github. My goal was to make it easy to support upgrades and EdgeOS updates. Feedback is welcome: https://github.com/bdwilson/vnstat-edgerouter

      • Matt
        Posted on

        Matt Matt

        Reply Author

        Brian,

        Thanks to you and Stanislav for your work on this. I’m going to get it a try here. Should I be concerned about daily writes to the flash memory? One suggestion I saw on the ui.com forums was enabling the USB port and using that as a storage location on inexpensive USB fobs.

        Thoughts?

        • Brian
          Posted on

          Brian Brian

          Reply Author

          One write a day is not going to hurt anything. If your edge router has some age on it, buy a Samsung Bar Plus USB flash drive and use this (https://github.com/sowbug/mkeosimg) to make a new boot drive. Save your old boot drive in case of failure.

          • Matt
            Posted on

            Matt Matt

            Reply Author

            Awesome! Yeah, I was thinking that it would be okay. I’m going to give it a shot here after while! Appreciate it!

          • Matt
            Posted on

            Matt Matt

            Reply Author

            Hey Brian,

            I set up using your scripts on GitHub. I’m trying to decipher how the images are being generated. I see the script in the cgi-bin, which is different than setting up a crontab for generating. What is triggering the generation on a schedule? (Sorry if I’m missing the obvious!)

  • Brian
    Posted on

    Brian Brian

    Reply Author

    They are only generated when you check the page.

    • Matt
      Posted on

      Matt Matt

      Reply Author

      Ah.. That’s what I thought. So I shouldn’t see any data then for 24 hours? I’m currently getting broken images and they haven’t updated in the past couple hours. Sorry, I’m working backwards trying to understand how/where it generates the data it should be pulling from. Thanks!

    • Matt
      Posted on

      Matt Matt

      Reply Author

      I restarted the vnstat service and it seems to be working now. So I think I’ve got it figured out now. Do you feel like there is no benefit in running a cronjob to update the images hourly, instead on execution? Just curious.

      Thanks again for your help!