1. Almost No-Cost Web Traffic Management Mark Bizzell & Matthew Mengel University of Southern Queensland

2. 1996 - The Problems Enormous growth in Internet traffic charges –growing academic requirements for access but have you checked your proxy logs lately? –increasing bandwidth capacity local, national, international –more and more students “discovered” the net –ease of use of tools (browsers, etc)

3. 1996 - The Problems

4. Limited Access Points –computer laboratories lab seats taken up by Internet users required for booked sessions required for other academic tasks –assignment preparation –programming –modems limited number, always jam packed

5. The Task Find a way to manage Internet (i.e. Web) traffic before it became a financial problem Also manage the limited laboratory and modem resources By the way, your budget is…

6. $ 0 (or thereabouts)

7. The Concept - Traffic Student Quota System –daily “allowance” accumulation capped at 10 days worth allocated once daily –once over quota, no more access quota excess capped at 7 days over –simple and effective no money involved can be extended to staff –fair?

8. The Concept - Access Lab Booking System –3 modes of access bookable open Internet access quota Internet access no Internet access –addresses issues of balancing Internet and other activities –modems too hard (for now)

9. Lab Booking System Log Processing Authentication Proxy Servers The Solution

10. MS Access database Predefined list of Labs Web access Nightly Update of booking information -Today + 6 days Lab Booking System

11. Proxy System Squid Proxy Servers Reconfigure daily with lab bookings ACL’s Allow user to authenticate Cache Authenticated access for 5 minutes Rotate Log files every 10 minutes

12. Authentication Only required from the labs and modems LDAP Server -Authenticates Staff and Students NT Domain -Alternate Staff authentication “No proxy” group membership

13. Log Processing Logs files collected every 10 minutes Processed by the quota system –single perl script –< 400 lines Update “No Proxy” LDAP group –LDAP ldif file

14. Information Out Students can query their remaining quota Students can see their traffic download volumes for the month Some staff query tools All perl-based cgi scripts

16. Tools Squid proxy server Netscape LDAP server ssh – Secure shell perl

17. Issues No perfect system -No online quota updates -Two hour modem limit for students -no “interactive” modem access restriction -Updates only done once a day

18. So did it work? June 1996  40 Gb June 2000  180 Gb Costs are acceptably under control –as defined by management –more use –more bandwidth –increase in quota from 1 Mb/day to 3 Mb/day

19. So did it work? Lab use acceptably moderated Modem congestion still a problem So, broadly speaking, Yes.

20. Future direction Rewrite the lab booking system Integration with Active Directory Quota system “database” –replace current flat file structure

21. Acknowledgments Peter Dobson –ex-ITS, USQ; now DEC, USQ –original concept and lab booking system Scott Sorley –ex-ITS, USQ; now NextEd –original ACLs when using Netscape proxy Dennis Rochford –ex-ITS, USQ; now NextEd –original lab booking system

22. Acknowledgments Mark Bizzell –ITS, USQ –Squid proxy implementation, use of ssh Matthew Mengel –ITS, USQ –original quota methodology, wrote quota system

23. Questions? bizzell@usq.edu.au Matthew.Mengel@usq.edu.au Quota system perl is available on request. –Use at your own risk, and let us know if modifications you make are useful.