Time Quota

Suggest improvements and new features for Gargoyle.

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ispyisail
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Time Quota

Post by ispyisail »

Hi all

My son is requesting a time quota.

At the moment I restrict my kids internet time based on time of the day restriction rules.

He wants a time/day quota rather than data quota?

I suspect most plans these days are unlimited so data plans are not so important?

Lantis
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Re: Time Quota

Post by Lantis »

I think this one is really hard to do. Particularly difficult to measure accurately.
http://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoyle_ispyisail.php for the latest releases
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ispyisail
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Re: Time Quota

Post by ispyisail »

Now that you point it out......how would you know the start and stop time.

Thanks

heilbronn
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Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:52 am
Location: Germany

Re: Time Quota

Post by heilbronn »

I had sort of a similar requirement with my kids:
I started a timer (plus the guest Wifi network) from my home automation. The kids could be given a button to be pressed (In my case I used a certain 5-digit number to be called on the internal phone). Upon timer expiration the network was turned off again. This was possible until a daily maximum was reached.

PS: A really ugly shell script to support some remote management on Gluon nodes (OpenWrt, too) is on github: … / sheilbronn/Manage-Gluon-MQTT .
I might adapt it for Gargoyle if possible/helpful… ?!
Integration with MQTT is not a must, runs fine with remote login on the OpenWRT node, too.
Last edited by heilbronn on Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Lantis
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Re: Time Quota

Post by Lantis »

A defined start/stop action is the most accurate. Implementing that is easy. Making it work on all devices is a crapshoot at best. Unless you’re happy for some devices to be managed by another device (e.g. whenever I want to play the PlayStation, I use the PC to start its session)

I think back to when I went to the US and had a prepaid internet card. I had to login on a PC and press a start button. After 15 minutes it would take me back to that page and I could click to extend or it would log off. I could also log off at any time.
How do you make that work on a PlayStation for example? It’s got an inbuilt browser, ok maybe, but your game isn’t going to be happy when it’s net traffic gets suddenly routed to a time check page.
And devices without interfaces (IoT) are even worse.

A few years ago I started writing a copy of the gargoyle bandwidth module to do time monitoring and time quotas. When I sent the idea to Eric, he said “great, but how do you factor in the chatty nature of devices?”. Should I subtract a minute from the quota every time your device phones google or apple or Microsoft to check it is alive or look for updates? Every time it checks an NTP server for the time? Every time it does a DNS query?

I’m convinced there’s no good way of determining time without asking the user. If someone comes up with something clever, let me know. I think it would be a great feature.
http://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoyle_ispyisail.php for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

ispyisail
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Re: Time Quota

Post by ispyisail »

You wait Lantis, your time will come when your kids don't have internet and they think the world has come to an end :)

The world has gone crazy :)

Lantis
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Re: Time Quota

Post by Lantis »

I think I’ve got at least 3 years reprieve from that one :)
http://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoyle_ispyisail.php for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

ispyisail
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Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:15 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Time Quota

Post by ispyisail »

Lantis wrote:
Mon Apr 18, 2022 4:52 am
I think I’ve got at least 3 years reprieve from that one :)
Its comes quicker than you think.

heilbronn
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:52 am
Location: Germany

Re: Time Quota

Post by heilbronn »

When they get older, you'll like the information that the "party has started" = number of clients increased by three within less than 15 minutes ;)

ispyisail
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Posts: 5180
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:15 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Time Quota

Post by ispyisail »

Possible solution, Captive portal?

Eric was about to impermeant a Captive portal about 10 years ago but he got busy :)

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