Router Stats Logger

Utilities and tools for networking, routers, setup etc
Post Reply
User avatar
Neo
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3586
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm
Contact:

Router Stats Logger

Post by Neo » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:53 pm

The Router Stats Logger is for Class II routers (and runs on Windows). It started off as a tool to log router stats (hence the name), but now it has many other features:
  • Has the ability to monitor whether a certain IP address is pingable (e.g. this should be an IP a some website like http://www.google.com or similar to check the WAN connection). If the IP address does not respond to pings (logged as DOWN) then the utility will keep trying to ping the IP address until it responds (logged as UP).
  • Can record the router's Internet connection stats (upstream/downstream speeds, SNR etc) at regular intervals.
  • The utility can be set to reboot the router after X number of failed pings.
  • A range of router information (including connection stats, SNR, attenuation, ISP hardware type and signal strength over frequency graph) can be obtained which is summarised as a report.
  • Extended ping testing for WAN IPs.
  • Trace route for WAN IPs.
  • Exchange information including approximate distance from the exchange, maximum rates based on the distance, IP Profile etc.
  • Downstream power spectrum graphs for ADSL2.
  • Downstream SNR graphs for the three Bin channels.
  • Output to a CSV file with the full stats.
  • Output to a text file with more condensed stats.
  • Can capture the screen and save the image as a JPEG file.
  • Can tweak the SNR margin threshold and many other Net connection properties.
  • Bandwidth monitoring facility - able to record hourly, daily, weekly and monthly totals.
Download v1.0.29 - Stats files can be named according to date and time. See this for more details.

Download v1.0.28 - Can change where to start using the downstream bit allocation data.

Download v1.0.27 - Winsock.ocx is no longer required. System log fetch and clear.

More Information
Last edited by Neo on Sun Oct 05, 2008 1:14 pm, edited 8 times in total.
RouterTech Team and Founding Member
Image
RouterTech Merchandise (UK)
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!
craken
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:08 pm

NeoDNS?

Post by craken » Sat Nov 17, 2007 11:18 am

When I try to run Router Stats Logger, v 1.0.16 and 1.0.17, it says "Failed to load controll "NeoDNS" from . ..." (see image attached).

What's wrong?
Attachments
RSLerror.PNG
Error Window
(25.04 KiB) Downloaded 264 times
User avatar
Neo
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3586
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm
Contact:

Post by Neo » Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:02 pm

Can you check that you have the Winsock control (MSWINSCK.OCX) and the VB6 runtime files installed on your PC?

Links:
Winsock control
Runtime files
RouterTech Team and Founding Member
Image
RouterTech Merchandise (UK)
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!
KevinR
Regular
Regular
Posts: 95
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:51 pm

Post by KevinR » Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:00 pm

I just tried running it from a win98se PC and get a dialog box pop up from te logger saying "Unexpected error". I checked I had the OCX and the VB6 files installed. Any thoughts?
User avatar
Neo
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3586
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm
Contact:

Post by Neo » Sun Nov 18, 2007 11:05 pm

After trying the RSL in a virtual Windows 98 machine, I found that Windows 98 doesn't like the colour-depth of some of the icons used and this generates the error on load. Also, the dll used by the RSL to ping is not installed in Win 98 by default so I will need to modify several parts of the RSL to work with Win 98...
RouterTech Team and Founding Member
Image
RouterTech Merchandise (UK)
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!
User avatar
Neo
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3586
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm
Contact:

Post by Neo » Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:42 pm

KevinR (and any other Windows 98 users) please try this version:

Download v1.0.18

I'm not sure if it work under plain vanilla Windows 98 or 95, but it works under Windows 98 SE...
RouterTech Team and Founding Member
Image
RouterTech Merchandise (UK)
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!
KevinR
Regular
Regular
Posts: 95
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:51 pm

Post by KevinR » Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:39 pm

Stunning work Neo. Very good of you to do it and in just over a day too!
It works very nicely. (And it was smaller!).

The dsp tuning options look remarkable/dangerous/boggling.

Question:
Is the maximum connection speed (stats page) an estimate or something obtained from the router? If its exchange then its more interesting...
Is it the max speed of the device at the exchange or the max of the line?
User avatar
Neo
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3586
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm
Contact:

Post by Neo » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:25 pm

KevinR wrote:Stunning work Neo. Very good of you to do it and in just over a day too!
It works very nicely. (And it was smaller!).
Thanks for the compliments, Kevin :)
KevinR wrote:The dsp tuning options look remarkable/dangerous/boggling.
It is quite complicated looking but each individual might only need to change one or two of those settings ;) I have included the descriptions from the TI documentation to help work out what each setting means :)
KevinR wrote:Question:
Is the maximum connection speed (stats page) an estimate or something obtained from the router? If its exchange then its more interesting...
Is it the max speed of the device at the exchange or the max of the line?
Under the 'stats' tab the 'maximum connection speed' is the maximum reported by the router. The router gets the value by probing the line and the exchange and settling on a suitable value. It will be dependant on your line at that particular time of day (if you resync this value might change).

Your exchange will have a different theoretical maximum rate (e.g. 2MB, 8MB or whatever) which depends on what the telephone operator/ISP has installed. The exchange maximum will be same for all the subscribers (of the particular speed/flavour/ISP) in the local area. If you are lucky and very close to the exchange then the maximum rate under the 'stats' tab in the RSL may well be the same as the maximum for your exchange. Hope that makes sense :)
RouterTech Team and Founding Member
Image
RouterTech Merchandise (UK)
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!
KevinR
Regular
Regular
Posts: 95
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:51 pm

Post by KevinR » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:44 pm

Now thats interesting - because I've been on a 2Mb product, throttled to 512Kb (did I say cheap!) that you could interactively adjust to 1Mb or 2Mb. (You paid a little extra for the hours it was wound up. ) It was quite good as you got a line without a FUP that you could speed up if you really needed it without paying for a 2Mb.

These results suggest its already been terminated on a DSLAM that supports ADSL/Max and can give me speed estimates. Useful as I was hoping to move to 8Mb but have some local noise to resolve!

Thanks again
craken
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:08 pm

Post by craken » Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:04 pm

Neo wrote:Can you check that you have the Winsock control (MSWINSCK.OCX) and the VB6 runtime files installed on your PC?
Thanks Neo, mswinsck.ocx was missed. But now ther's a new problem, ;-): "Run-time error '5'" (see image attached).

I think it's something related to SNR Margin Thereshold not set in my router (Roper Flynet with v2.3 Routertech firmware).
Attachments
rte5.PNG
Run-time error '5'
(45.77 KiB) Downloaded 6556 times
User avatar
Neo
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3586
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm
Contact:

Post by Neo » Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:45 pm

Glad you were able to get a little further :)

Try ticking the 'Compatibility mode' option under the 'Settings' tab.
RouterTech Team and Founding Member
Image
RouterTech Merchandise (UK)
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!
KevinR
Regular
Regular
Posts: 95
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:51 pm

Post by KevinR » Thu Nov 22, 2007 12:10 am

err, Neo:
Had a bit of an oddity the logger decided to keep restarting the router the other day. As far as I could tell everything was working normally but unless I set the failed ping count very high my router seemed to reconnect/reboot. Has anyone reported any issues?

My suspicion is that my ISP may be eating the pings sometimes - they throttle a bit to madly for my liking really. Is there any logging I have missed (from the RSL) which would show the loss?

Thanks
User avatar
Neo
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3586
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm
Contact:

Post by Neo » Thu Nov 22, 2007 1:13 am

KevinR wrote:My suspicion is that my ISP may be eating the pings sometimes - they throttle a bit to madly for my liking really.
If that's the case, then there isn't an awful lot you can do apart from increasing the time out count or changing the target IP to something less likely to be 'eaten' - perhaps one of the ISP servers? I suppose you could increase the ping interval, as that might give the pings a better chance of making it through.
KevinR wrote:Is there any logging I have missed (from the RSL) which would show the loss?
Well you could some idea of the pattern from the logs, seeing when the connection is apparently up or down. If and when it happens again, try a manual (multiple) ping to the IP in question and see how that fairs. Does the SNR margin drop at around the same time as the connection goes down?
RouterTech Team and Founding Member
Image
RouterTech Merchandise (UK)
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!
mstombs
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3753
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:54 pm

Post by mstombs » Thu Nov 22, 2007 10:06 am

Dropping ICMP traffic (including pings) is one thing ISP routers do when they are overloaded - I think they just deprioritize them to keep other traffic flowing.

I've seen this with both NTL cable and now TalkTalk. Pinging an ISP DNS server may be better than the intermediate "gateway".
KevinR
Regular
Regular
Posts: 95
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:51 pm

Post by KevinR » Thu Nov 22, 2007 9:14 pm

Neo wrote:perhaps one of the ISP servers?
I reckon they actually drop the traffic so I'll try just pinging their DNS server.
Neo wrote:Well you could some idea of the pattern from the logs, seeing when the connection is apparently up or down. ... Does the SNR margin drop at around the same time as the connection goes down?
When I posted I hadn't actually seen where the logs went - as there is no config for it in the GUI (?).

Since then I found and checked the logs. (Assuming up/down in stats.txt refers to the ping check) Interestingly the DOWN appears with both low and high noise margin. So I reckon its the ISP.

The next thing is to try and improve the moments of poor SNR. I had it logging at 10 mins intervals, and some were very low. With the RT2.3 firmware is the DS margin an instantaneous value (as I assume) or an average over some time period?

Thanks
Post Reply