The final IPTables setup and some initial results

Hi and welcome back. I've just realized that I haven't published the final solution for data gathering. So in this post I'll:

1. Describe the IPTables setup
2. Show the initial script I wrote to read the results
3. Show some preliminary raw data

IPTables Setup
I've changed the setup described in the first post about the subject to also add the "foreign" side of each identified Skype connection to the "recent" list (using the "recent" module). That way when an ICMP packet arrives from a host in that list I assume that it's related to Skype (I guess there are very slim chances to have Skype traffic with a server such as web hosts).

Here is the updated setup:

# match all outgoing packets from gid skype, mark their connection
# and add their destination to the "recent list" so we can count ICMP packets to/from them
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --gid-owner skype --out-interface eth0   --protocol tcp -m recent --rdest --set --name Skype -j CONNMARK --set-mark 1
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --gid-owner skype --out-interface eth0   --protocol udp -m recent --rdest --set --name Skype -j CONNMARK --set-mark 2

# count ICMP packets going to hosts which appear in our "recent" list
iptables -A OUTPUT --out-interface eth0 --protocol icmp -m recent --rdest   --name Skype --update -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment skype-out-icmp

# all packets which match the connection should go through the skype rule
iptables -A OUTPUT -m connmark --mark 1 -m comment --comment skype-out-tcp
iptables -A OUTPUT -m connmark --mark 2 -m comment --comment skype-out-udp

# match all packets on Skype's public TCP port and mark their connection
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 21212 --in-interface eth0 -j CONNMARK --set-mark 1
iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 21212 --in-interface eth0 -j CONNMARK --set-mark 2
# count ICMP packets coming from hosts which appear in our "recent" list
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --in-interface eth0 -m recent --name Skype   --update -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment skype-in-icmp

# all packets which match the connection
iptables -A INPUT -m connmark --mark 1 -m comment --comment skype-in-tcp
iptables -A INPUT -m connmark --mark 2 -m comment --comment skype-in-udp

The counter reading script was modified to add "icmp" to the list of protocols it looks for and to total bytes/packets over the various planes: direction (total in vs. total out) and protocol (tcp vs. udp vs. icmp)

Here is what the counters look like after about 25 days of data gathering:

$ sudo ./getcounts.pl
tcp_out_bytes   35838386
icmp_out_bytes  155016
tcp_in_pkts     441671
icmp_out_pkts   1023
icmp_in_pkts    4526
udp_out_bytes   242046393
tcp_out_pkts    540629
icmp_in_bytes   505522
udp_out_pkts    1799468
udp_in_pkts     1607313
udp_in_bytes    204286584
tcp_in_bytes    42500198
====== totals =====
tcp_pkts        982300
tcp_bytes       78338584
icmp_pkts       5549
out_pkts        2341120
icmp_bytes      660538
udp_bytes       446332977
in_bytes        247292304
udp_pkts        3406781
out_bytes       278039795
in_pkts         2053510

I'm still looking for time to add writing of these numbers into an RRD file so it'll be possible to graph them across different periods, but for now my simple conslusion is about the "in_bytes" numbers (and to a lesser degree, the "out_bytes"): they are 235.8 incoming mega bytes and 265.1 outgoing mega bytes.

Over a period of 25 days this puts it at around 9.4 incoming mega bytes per day and 10.6 outgoing megabytes per day. Over a month (let's say it's 30 days) it's 283.0 mega bytes per month of incoming traffic and 318.2 mega bytes of outgoing traffic. This includes my own Skype conversations (admittedly, not much this month).

Whether this proves Cringley's point or not? I'm not sure. I didn't believe that there is that much traffic involved until I startted this experiment, but I'm still not completly convinced it's "too much to handle".

In my personal context it's still less than 2% (1.38%, to be precise) of my download quota of 20Gb per month.

So for now I'm not going to give up on the advantages of a smoother connection (which is the reason I configured my desktop as a "Super-node" in the first place).

I'd be glad to learn from you what you think about the experiment (have I missed some packets?) and the result - do you agree with my conclusion so far or not?