Description:
This document describes the accounting function in LANCOM devices, the con=
figuration of its settings, and the options for analysis of the information=
with LANmonitor and other software.
Requirements:
What does accounting mean?
The accounting function in LANCOM devices is able to log the amount of dat=
a transferred between the MAC address or IP address of a client and the cor=
responding WAN peer.
It can also take a "snapshot" of the status following a preset period of t=
ime. This facilitates the billing according to traffic volumes, for example=
.
Setting up the accounting:
To enable the collection of accounting information, you first access the d=
evice's configuration and navigate to the menu item Configuration -> =
Management -> Costs. Here you can activate the option Collect acc=
ounting information:
All other options can be configured in this menu, too.
The Differentiation criterion must be specified here. The default s=
etting here is by MAC address, although it is also possible to sort =
by IP address.
Information:
When varying IP addresses are in use, e.g. when using a DHCP server, the o=
ption IP address can lead to inaccurate accounting data. In this cas=
e, it may not be possible to accurately assign the data to users.
Conversely, with this setting, data can be separated for clients that are =
behind another router and therefore appear in the accounting list with the =
same MAC address as the router.
The Accounting snapshot button provides the option for the collecte=
d accounting data to be regularly copied to a table in order to analyze the=
data over a time interval.
Enable the accounti=
ng snapshot.
Now you set the Interval that the snapshot should cover. You can ch=
oose between daily, weekly and monthly.
Depending on the configured time interval, you must now set the appropriat=
e time options:
For monthly snapshots:
- The day of the month on which the snapshot should be taken (default set=
ting is "1")
For weekly snapshots:
- The weekday on which the snapshot should be taken (default setting is "=
Sunday")
For all options:
- The time in hours and minutes to set the time exactly. Valid input is 0=
=E2=80=93 23 for "hours" and 0 =E2=80=93 59 for "minutes".
At the configured time, a snapshot of the data is taken and stored in the =
device.
The snapshot function only works if the device is set wit=
h a valid time. Ideally you should obtain this from a time server. <=
br>
By default, the accounting information is stored to the volatile main memo=
ry in the device. To protect the accounting data in case of a device reboot=
=E2=80=93 for example, following a power failure =E2=80=93 it is also poss=
ible to store the information in the flash memory of the device.
In this case, the snapshot will also be stored to the flash memory. This o=
ption is also activated in the menu item Configuration -> Management-=
> Costs:
Now that the accounting has been configured correctly, the information wil=
l be collected as desired.
Analyzing accounting information:<=
/b>
To display the collected information, you start LANmonitor for the device =
=E2=80=93 for example, by marking the device in LANconfig and using the key=
combination CTRL + M.
You can view the accounting data by clicking on the menu Device -> V=
iew accounting information:
You will then see an overview of the current data. You can now toggle this=
output to the last billing period in the menu View:
<=
br>
This table lists the information, which can be sorted by clicking on the t=
able headers.
This information can be further processed for detailed analysis.
To do this you must first download the information from the device and sto=
re it. This is also done in LANmonitor.
Select the menu item Accounting and click on the option Save acc=
ounting information:
The save file dialog now prompts you to give the file a name and select th=
e storage location.
The file is stored in the format .ACC. This file can be displayed a=
gain with LANmonitor.
Further processing of the accountin=
g data:
This file can be imported into a spreadsheet program for further processin=
g.
Start a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel. You can use this to i=
mport the accounting file.
When you open the file with Microsoft Excel, the Excel Import dialog pops =
up:
Set the original data type to Delimited and confirm with Next
In step 2:
Here you select the delimiter option Semicolon and you can exit the=
wizard with Finish.
You now have the data in a table. Although the table headers are not inclu=
ded in the ACC file, the columns are in the same order as in LANmonitor, wi=
th the exception of the first column and the number of connections, which i=
s moved to the end of each row:
[MAC address] - [IP address or Ne=
tBios name] - [Peer] - [Type of connection] - [Received KB] - [Transmitted =
KB] - [Total online time (sec.)] - [Number of connections]
The value for Total online time is displayed in seconds. =
Now that the data is available in the spreadsheet, it can be processed fur=
ther. |
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