Using (Tomato) Linux (Router) as Web Proxy Server.
Request for help: Using (Tomato) Linux (Router) as Web Proxy Server. I remotely manage several Tomato networks. I would like to connect to the ISP's Usage Data web page, from the remote network, to check the remote network's data usage. I'd also like to run the ISP-specific (web browser) speed test from the remote network, to check the remote network's data rates. These seem like very ordinary, simple things to want to do. I'd like to find someone who has actually done these things, and who can help me do them. (I have found dozens of "how-to" web pages that don't work for me. But I have not found anyone who has said "I do this all the time, and here is how I do it". Instead, I have found many people who have said "I have never done this, and I won't try to do it myself it, but you should try this ....") Being able to do a web search on "my IP" and get the remote (proxy) host's IP address is really all need. So, if there is someone who actually has done this, please help! Thank you very much. [Mac OS X, Google-Chrome, Tomato Shibby 131 AIO] -- Peter
On 20 September 2015 at 15:21, Peter Renzland <renzland@gmail.com> wrote:
Request for help: Using (Tomato) Linux (Router) as Web Proxy Server.
I remotely manage several Tomato networks.
I would like to connect to the ISP's Usage Data web page, from the remote network, to check the remote network's data usage.
I'd also like to run the ISP-specific (web browser) speed test from the remote network, to check the remote network's data rates.
These seem like very ordinary, simple things to want to do. I'd like to find someone who has actually done these things, and who can help me do them. (I have found dozens of "how-to" web pages that don't work for me. But I have not found anyone who has said
"I do this all the time, and here is how I do it". Instead, I have found many people who have said "I have never done this, and I won't try to do it myself it, but you should try this ....")
Being able to do a web search on "my IP" and get the remote (proxy) host's IP address is really all need.
So, if there is someone who actually has done this, please help! Thank you very much.
[Mac OS X, Google-Chrome, Tomato Shibby 131 AIO]
Many years ago (so this almost falls into the category of "I haven't done this but you should try it" - sorry ... but it did work then) I had a pretty good system for finding my home IP. I did it from the home computer, not the router: you should have router access, which should make it easier. My home computer would check the IP address assigned to the router every five minutes on a cron job, and if it found the IP was different from last time, it would update the IP on a web page and post it to my public web server. That section of the website was password-protected (although not encrypted, something I would definitely do now). I hope this is useful, sorry it's so vague. -- Giles http://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
On 22 September 2015 at 18:31, Giles Orr <gilesorr@gmail.com> wrote:
On 20 September 2015 at 15:21, Peter Renzland <renzland@gmail.com> wrote:
Request for help: Using (Tomato) Linux (Router) as Web Proxy Server.
I remotely manage several Tomato networks.
I would like to connect to the ISP's Usage Data web page, from the
remote network, to check the remote network's data usage.
I'd also like to run the ISP-specific (web browser) speed test from the
remote network, to check the remote network's data rates.
These seem like very ordinary, simple things to want to do. I'd like to find someone who has actually done these things, and who
can help me do them.
(I have found dozens of "how-to" web pages that don't work for me. But I have not found anyone who has said
"I do this all the time, and here is how I do it". Instead, I have found many people who have said "I have never done this, and I won't try to do it myself it, but you should try this ....")
Being able to do a web search on "my IP" and get the remote (proxy) host's IP address is really all need.
So, if there is someone who actually has done this, please help! Thank you very much.
[Mac OS X, Google-Chrome, Tomato Shibby 131 AIO]
Many years ago (so this almost falls into the category of "I haven't done this but you should try it" - sorry ... but it did work then) I had a pretty good system for finding my home IP. I did it from the home computer, not the router: you should have router access, which should make it easier. My home computer would check the IP address assigned to the router every five minutes on a cron job, and if it found the IP was different from last time, it would update the IP on a web page and post it to my public web server. That section of the website was password-protected (although not encrypted, something I would definitely do now).
I hope this is useful, sorry it's so vague.
I use inadyn-mt <https://sourceforge.net/projects/inadyn-mt/> to push IP changes over to domains on afraid.org. Unfortunately, there have been issues with such packages making the processes pretty fragile. I used to use "plain inadyn"; had to jump to a fork that seemed better maintained. (I'm not sure the difference continues to be true.) I believe that dd-wrt and open-wrt include inadyn deployments for updating "home IPs". -- When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
Peter Renzland wrote:
Request for help: Using (Tomato) Linux (Router) as Web Proxy Server.
I remotely manage several Tomato networks.
I would like to connect to the ISP's Usage Data web page, from the remote network, to check the remote network's data usage.
That much probably only requires a proxy at the remote site, presuming the ISP shows the graph corresponding to the customer IP that's asking. I've used a Squid instance on a remote host together with SSH port-forwarding my browser there, but that may be overkill. ("Nothing succeeds like excess.") Using the SOCKS-protocol support in SSH and Firefox would probably suffice to get your traffic coming out at the other end of the connection.
I'd also like to run the ISP-specific (web browser) speed test from the remote network, to check the remote network's data rates.
I'd strongly suspect that proxying your web connection back out over the same link will badly skew the test (especially with asymmetric data rates!). Even running a browser remotely over VNC or the like will use a chunk of your bandwidth. Putting up MRTG and Smokeping instances tracking link utilization and health may do a better job than those web-animation doovers, along with letting you look at history when someone complains how bad it was an hour ago. MRTG monitors traffic levels, so requires SNMP access or other means of getting interface packet counters. You'll be able to tell from the maximum inbound and outbound levels what speeds you're getting; the graphs will generally cap at the same level everytime someone downloads something big. Typically you monitor your own router and get stats on that first hop to your ISP. Smokeping is a similar tool that shows latency and packet loss, so typically you want to have it ping the ISP router and more distant targets you have to reach (your webserver in colo, for example) to see how good or bad the experience is at the moment. Compare to the MRTG picture to see if things get rough during big uploads and/or downloads.
These seem like very ordinary, simple things to want to do. I'd like to find someone who has actually done these things, and who can help me do them. (I have found dozens of "how-to" web pages that don't work for me. But I have not found anyone who has said
"I do this all the time, and here is how I do it". Instead, I have found many people who have said "I have never done this, and I won't try to do it myself it, but you should try this ....")
I've done rather a lot of monitoring, and Icinga (Nagios), MRTG, and Smokeping are the sorts of thing I set up watching the links and hosts I care about. Back in my ISP days we had a few locally-grown tools too.
Being able to do a web search on "my IP" and get the remote (proxy) host's IP address is really all need.
If they're on dynamic addresses some form of dynamic DNS is probably a piece you'll need. -- Anthony de Boer
participants (4)
-
Anthony de Boer -
Christopher Browne -
Giles Orr -
Peter Renzland