A quick update about my OpenWRT router. I have installed luci-app-nlbwmon into it. It neatly helps keep track of who consumed which chunk of bandwidth when using metered connection. This happens usually when traveling in pair. Sometimes friends pay a visit too. Here's how it looks from the LuCI:

An example view at the Netlink Bandwidth Monitor in LuCI

It also comes with some configuration settings, with one of them interesting enough to note here:

Bandwidth Monitor > Configuration > Advanced Settings > Commit interval

The options available are:

  • 24h - least flash wear at the expense of data loss risk
  • 12h - compromise between risk of data loss and flash wear
  • 10m - frequent commits at the expense of flash wear
  • 60s - commit minutely, useful for non-flash storage

The first option, 24h is the default one, which makes sense for most consumer grade routers. These settings imply that when the router is powered down before data is committed to a storage, they are lost.

The configuration also allows to choose the Database directory in the same configuration tab. I can imagine that by mounting some NAS over the network and modifying this path, flash wear on the router could be prevented while simultaneously mitigating data loss, but I did not try this idea yet.

This is a 44th post of #100daystooffload.