I need a way to log data usage, here is my scenario:
RB433UAH
Eth1 -> LAN
Eth2 -> Bridged DSL Router (Via PPPoE)
PPTP -> VPN via default route (PPPoE)

I currently have Connection, Packet & Routing marks to distinguish between International, Local & VPN traffic.

My employer has tasked me with logging the data usage of each IP on the LAN so that we can determine each IP's monthly usage. Preferably, we don't want all the users to require accounts, meaning that we don't really want a RADIUS & (PPPoE-Server/HotSpot) solution. I really just want some way to log the total usage per IP, and if possible, per routing/packet mark.

I think that this log will have to be done to a text file? (Any other suggestions are welcome!)

Note: My scripting skills are at "absolute beginner".

Thanks in advance for any advice on this topic!

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/Traffic_Flow

Thank you!

I had a look at Traffic-Flow and Netflow applications to utilize this feature of MikroTik.

Can you recommend a good, free TrafficFlow analyser that runs on Windows?

Can you recommend a good, free TrafficFlow analyser that runs on Windows?

Choose from http://www.networkuptime.com/tools/netflow/

It all depends on if you want to pay for a collector/analyzer or if you want a free one.

There are tons of pay for ones, but they tend to get rather pricey the more nodes you add on. (Intermapper, Scrutinizer, etc)

On the free side I've set up Ntop and NFSen and both work fine. Ntop was designed as a traffic analyzer for for a computer, and later on they added on Net-Flows, so their user interface reflects that, but it is easy to set up. Basically each location is shown as a separate "interface". NFSen is a bit more complicated to set up but it works, and the UI makes more sense as an analyzer. There are tons of other free ones out there as well if you are willing to take the time and effort to set them up and use them.

It all depends on if you want to pay for a collector/analyzer or if you want a free one.

There are tons of pay for ones, but they tend to get rather pricey the more nodes you add on. (Intermapper, Scrutinizer, etc)

On the free side I've set up Ntop and NFSen and both work fine. Ntop was designed as a traffic analyzer for for a computer, and later on they added on Net-Flows, so their user interface reflects that, but it is easy to set up. Basically each location is shown as a separate "interface". NFSen is a bit more complicated to set up but it works, and the UI makes more sense as an analyzer. There are tons of other free ones out there as well if you are willing to take the time and effort to set them up and use them.

Thank you! I've had a look at Ntop, unfortunately, the Free Windows version is very limited and my Linux knowledge is very basic. I suppose I have to install some distro of Linux OS, and then install Ntop on that?

I'll have a look at NFSen!

Ntop for Windows and Linux are very close to the same thing if I remember correctly. But yes, almost all of the netflows collectors are going to run on top of one Linux distro or another.

NFSen was programed on CentOS so for me at least it was the one that took the least amount of fiddling to get it doing what I wanted, but I got it working on Ubuntu just fine as well after figuring a few things out. I went with Ubuntu since most of our servers are running that.