Thanks for the responses,and the offers for the work you have done ....
Now, the architecture of this is as follows:
A stats gathering daemon, which is a linux console app written in C, telnets to the router, requests the a/vdsl stats and parses the response. It then populates a mysql database (schema/table definition will be available to you), sleeps and repeats at a configurable rate.
With the exception of Loony's particular requirement (more on that in a bit), the mysql database and nginx server are hosted on your Pi on your local Lan. (although, with proper security measures taken, you could obviously open up the Pi to the wider internet world should you so wish, and hence access it from anywhere)
Now, using the mysql databse, an nginx server (although it could be apache/lighttpd etc) processes php scripts and uses Google Charts javascript to pass the data to the webclient to produce charts and the like.
Now, as of now , and for the first beta release, the charts are pretty crude/basic.
What would be great however is if those with interest in php/google charts could develop charts of their own and feed them back so that all could inherit their efforts. (you obviouly get the current php code with the install for use as a basis/template)
Now, doing this might mean that the daemon would need to capture more/different data, and obviously I would incorporate any such mods into the stats daemon.
Now, loony
I have had a play with smoothwall in a virtual machine, and there is a way forward, but it is probably more complex that you would like ideally, for the following reasons. I recompiled the daemon for what I believe is your host system, and it runs just fine on a virtual machine running smoothwall (i386). It's a special build as I needed to statically link in the mysql libraries as, unlike a standard distro, one cannot just add required libraries to smoothwall (understandably - it's a security device after all)
The special case is the fact we need a mysql/webserver somewhere (as it's normally on the Pi) , and running a mysql server on smoothwall would appear to be a no-no (ignoring the technical aspects, it's probably a bad idea to even try)
So, you need a mysql server to talk to.
Now, the stats daemon can talk to any mysql server that it can connect to, whether local or on the web
3 options spring to mind to overcome this problem.
1. I could, with the devs approval and help, make the stats daemon update the MyDslWebStats solution, removing the requirement for you to supply a mysql server/webserver (any of the MyDslWebStats team care to chip in with a comment about this
in principle ?)
2. You could, for approx $15 US (approx £8 per annum) rent a virtual private server (VPS) with a good enough spec to host the mysql server/webserver yourself. (sry if this is teaching you to suck eggs, but you would need to look after it though - keep it patched and keep it secure - you cannot ignore an internet-facing device/server)
3. You could host a mysql server/nginx server on your lan on a 24/7 machine (buy a Pi ?
), but this is probably a non-realistic option as if you had a linux machine on 24/7, you wouldn't have asked about the smoothwall option - lol
However, being technically curious, I would like to prove it would actually work in the real world on a proper smoothwall device, rather than just in my virtualization.
If you wanted to test this out, I would be more than happy to
temporarily host a database/site for your data just to see if it really works as anticipated.
I don't ever want to get into hosting data storage for this solution - the whole point was to utilise the users Pi as it fits the requirements so well, but I would be intrigued to see if actually works in your case, hence the offer.
Let me know if you want to take this forward by any of the above means, and if so, we will see what we can work out...