Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!OAC.UCLA.EDU!CSYSMAS
From: CSYSMAS@OAC.UCLA.EDU (Michael Stein)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Packet level accounting in IP routers?
Message-ID: <8804190100.AA01036@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 18 Apr 88 18:15:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 17

> The "per packet accounting" load could be limited by using sampling
> techniques, like the US Postal Service does when allocating costs
> to government departments.  Regards - Craig

Is the overhead of counting packets really that high?

I would assume that any IP router would have a "total" packet
counter included in its overhead (1 counter).

How much overhead would be added to count packets to each
"interface" on the router (may already exist) and then "bill"
each interface for it's count of packets?

This doesn't divide the counts by host (IP address), possibly the
hosts could be trusted to do that.  (You would know the total).
Hosts need accounting anyway, so that they can charge the packets
back to the actual user anyway (assuming multiuser host).