After further messing about I've ended up using netstat to dump out my data 
usage, seeing as ipf doesn't seem to want to give my byte counts, only 
packet counts. And I'm running a cron job to compare between old and new 
totals to generate a running total.

So just as I get the point of looking at configuring altq, what happens? My 
ISP decides to offer, and I quote: "The big addition is that we are now 
offering a Flat-Rate option to existing plans, where once you hit either 
the Peak or the Off-Peak Limit during your billing period then you will be 
shaped to modem speeds until the beginning of the next billing period."
Argh!!!
Oh well, I think I'd prefer to track it myself anyway, it also lets me keep 
a much closer eye on how much I'm using anyway...
:-)
Piers

At 06:35 16/12/2002, Harry Waddell wrote:
>On Sun, 15 Dec 2002 22:03:01 +1100
>"J. Piers Hearn" <endareth@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm trying to set up a system whereby once my data transfer through a
> > specified interface (pppoe0 specifically) has passed a specified amount 
> (in
> > this case being my monthly 10 gigs of download), my bandwidth 
> automatically
> > throttles down to a lower rate, say equivalent to a 28.8k modem. I 
> figure I
> > can do this by some use of netstat to track my data transfer, and altq to
> > then throttle down my interface.
> >
> > So far, run into the following snags: If I'm going to use netstat, I need
> > some way to clear it's totals at the end of month, but I can't see a
> > convenient way of doing so. Second, setting up altq, can anyone point 
> me to
> > any good doco on configuring it? I've found one at
> > ftp://ftp.csl.sony.co.jp/pub/kjc/papers/altq98.ps.gz which gives good
> > technical info about altq, but not much useful about how to configure it.
> >
>
>I personally don't have much experience with it, but you could try using the
>accounting features, i.e. using "count" in ipf.conf, of ipfilter to do the
>counting. You should be able to reset those counters using ipf -z. The cia
>package may be of some assistance as well. Man altq.conf has the altq config
>info you should need.
>
>--
>Harry Waddell
>Caravan Electronic Publishing