Gargoyle Forum

Hi All!
This is my first post on this forum, so let's get this out of the way: LOVE THE GARGOYLE!

On to Hughes and their Fair Access Policy (FAP)...

I've seen posts on the forum where people are asking for a method of using quotas, but on a rolling period. Hughes claims they have a rolling 24 hour period, so I assumed that is what I wanted as well.
The responses weren't encouraging, so I started a 2 prong attack to try to implement them my self - 1) download and compile Gargoyle and 2) get details of Hughes' FAP policy.
Step 1 went well.

After much on-hold time and arguing with Hughes, I have concluded that despite their contention they DO NOT have a rolling limit. At least as I understand "rolling". Instead, they reset/refill your available quota at a given time of day, and they can change the refill time whenever they want. I'm sure they don't do it frequently, but I _have_ seen it change 3 times in a week.

My possible solution: write a cron script to query the satellite modem to figure out when the next reset is, and if it is different than the reset times on the gargoyle router quotas, update the gargoyle quotas' reset times.
I don't want to keep hitting the flash, so I was wondering if using "uci set" is enough. I.e. can I choose _not_ to do a "uci commit"?

Next question: Can I make the quota system ignore bandwidth usage that is to/from the satellite modem itself? For instance, the modem has a web page of how much of your FAP limit is still available, and that page re-loads it self every minute or so. That traffic would not actually count against my FAP limit.

Thanks for any help!

JimE.

What router are you using Gargoyle on?

Not too familiar with Cron, but that shouldn't be a problem to
create a script for what you are wanting to do.

You might also be able to create a shell script to do this as well.

As long as you have a 32MB ram router, should be able to do
what you want with some type of script.

As far as flash writes go... there have been many debates on this

If you have a decently made router, like Linksys/Cisco, etc
A good brand name, not a generic china/taiwan cheapo,
most current chips will have enough flashes to last years.

By the time you wear out the chip, you're probably going to
upgrade to another router anyway.

There have been tons of debates over on DD-WRT, OpenWRT,
etc, as well as other online message boards about too much
flashing... heck, even the new Android phones, are always
writing to their chips. They are alot sturdier than they used
to be and brand name routers usually have better components.

Cheaper routers can have cheaper made parts, and yes, can
wear down quicker.

For your 2nd question - I don't know if that is possible, but you
might be able to do a workaround for that.

How many times are you polling your satellite modem, and how
much data is actually being transmitted?

How strict is this usage, I mean, are you trying to get every single
byte avaialable? Or can you fudge it a little?

If you poll the web page every 30 minutes, so 48 times a day,
for estimation - count it as 50 times, and each polling sends
20 KB of data, you're looking at about 1 MB of data, so just
adjust your quota by 1 MB. Something like that?

Thanks for the reply!

Router = Linksys WRT54G; not a lot of RAM.

Cron script = a normal shell script/program that gets run by the OS at a specified interval - once an hour, once a month, every 5 minutes, etc.


If I do a "uci set firewall.quota*" without a commit, the changes show up in the normal Gargoyle interface. Does this mean that they are actually in effect, or do I have to do a "uci commit" before they are actually in effect?
I believe that doing a "set" puts it in RAM/"/tmp", and a commit writes the config file to flash ( /etc, I believe ).

2nd question follow-up: The software that shows my current FAP quota status is provided by Hughes, so I have no control over how frequently it updates. It looks like it is every 30 seconds or so.
The modem also supplies a proxy on port 80 that I can/do use that is supposed to speed up access to web pages, so that is some more overhead that goes to the satellite modem.
In general, I've found that the Gargolye quota tracking seems to report more usage than what is shown by my FAP quota tracker. I guess I could figure out if there is an average % difference and set my quotas accordingly, but I was hoping to get Gargoyle to show a close approximation of the FAP usage.

Thanks again!

JimE.

Hello Again,
Eric has answered my questions for me ( thanks, Eric! ):

Q1) Do changes to the quota reset time take effect after doing a "uci set firewall.*", or only after doing the set and then a "uci commit firewall"?

A1) Neither. You need to do a commit and then *restart* the firewall. Ideally you should run /usr/lib/gargoyle/restart_firewall.sh to restart the firewall after committing your changes.

Q2) 2) Is there any way I can make the quota system ignore traffic that is to/from my satellite modem?

A2) This is not currently possible.


When I get my modem query script running, I will post it!


JimE.