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Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 13:21:38 -0300
From: Harald Welte <laforge@gnumonks.org>
To: Olaf Titz <olaf@bigred.inka.de>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Counters [Re: IP Acounting Idea for 2.5]
Message-ID: <20010420132138.B2461@tatooine.laforge.distro.conectiva>
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In-Reply-To: <E14pSji-0000Ng-00@hunte.bigred.inka.de>; from olaf@bigred.inka.de on Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 12:29:30PM +0200
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On Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 12:29:30PM +0200, Olaf Titz wrote:
> > Umm, no.  Counters can be resetable - you just specify that accounting
> > programs should not reset them, ever.
> >
> > The ability to reset counters is extremely useful if you're a human
> > looking at the output of iptables -L -v.  (I thus far know of no one
> > who can memorise the counter values for around 40 rules).
> 
> You'll get bogus accounting results unless you stop/restart the
> accounting programs every time you manually deal with the counters.
> This sounds dangerously easy to make mistakes to me.

mmh. But isn't that obvious? Every time you mess with anything (counters
or rules) of the chains/tables, your accounting program will get into
trouble, if it relies on those counters.

I don't think that it makes sense to do iptables-based accounting if you have
changes to the ruleset (counters and/or rules) at runtime. You'd have 
to be very cautious what you are doing.

> Olaf

-- 
Live long and prosper
- Harald Welte / laforge@gnumonks.org                http://www.gnumonks.org
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