Bandwidth tracking per user

[Curtis Hawthorne <mrperson@mrperson.org>]

Hi all,

I'm trying to put together a solution for tracking the bandwidth usage
of each local user on a shared server.  At first, I thought I could just
create a rule for each user with the --uid-owner match on all traffic
and look at the counter for that rule.  But, I found out it will only
work on LOCAL_OUT or POST_ROUTING.  So, the solution I came up with was
to use the --uid-owner to set a mark on the connection on an outgoing
packet and then use that mark to track the incoming traffic.  Here's an
example of what I was doing to track root's incoming and outgoing traffic:

iptables -t filter -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner 0 -j CONNMARK --set-mark 0

iptables -A INPUT -m connmark --mark 0

This seems like a strange way to do things to me.  Is there a better way
to track total bandwidth usage for local users, or will this way work?

Thanks!

Curtis H.