AddOn Development Request - Dashboard views

[JR Godwin]

So recently, I went down a pfSense rabbit hole and experimented with running my home network through that. I even finally buckled down and learned to do a Wireguard to NordVPN implementation, etc.

Ultimately, the thing that pulled me back was my inability to get an Open NAT on my xbox(es) like I could with Merlin (believe me, I went deep into the NAT topics and tried multiple configurations to move it off of strict. best I could do was Moderate)......Plus, I liked a lot of the implementations and the presentations of them via the merlin menus. Anyway, I digress....

What I really did enjoy about the pfSense experience was the dashboard, and i'm wondering if there's something that can be done on the Merlin side of things, either as an add-on or tweaks on the Network Map page. I'm guessing those are probably required to remain as they are, but guessing an addon page could pull from it the relevant parts, as well as others....

For me, I like seeing the System Status tab, from Internet Traffic down through RAM, but would also love to see maybe a snippet of vnstat, last spdMerlin result, vpn client status, etc.

I'm guessing the massive customization available on the pfSense one is a bit harder to emulate, because they're putting in the hooks for those widgets, and they're objects that you can drag around the screen....but...just saying....for all you wonderful, smart, capable devlopers out there....it might be a fun challenge

From the network map tab....things *I* (just me, maybe others) think would be pulled into the dashboard view are:

Internet Status blob
Internet traffic live graph
cpu live graphs
RAM live graph
Clients (with the view list button)
add in from elsewhere
Uptime
Temperature (of course!)
VPN Status
addons
maybe the most recent summary of all usage pic if using vnstat
and the last test result if using spdmerlin
(or have choices available from the addons when dictating the layout of the dashboard)

 

[kstamand]

So recently, I went down a pfSense rabbit hole and experimented with running my home network through that. I even finally buckled down and learned to do a Wireguard to NordVPN implementation, etc.

Ultimately, the thing that pulled me back was my inability to get an Open NAT on my xbox(es) like I could with Merlin (believe me, I went deep into the NAT topics and tried multiple configurations to move it off of strict. best I could do was Moderate)......Plus, I liked a lot of the implementations and the presentations of them via the merlin menus. Anyway, I digress....

What I really did enjoy about the pfSense experience was the dashboard, and i'm wondering if there's something that can be done on the Merlin side of things, either as an add-on or tweaks on the Network Map page. I'm guessing those are probably required to remain as they are, but guessing an addon page could pull from it the relevant parts, as well as others....

For me, I like seeing the System Status tab, from Internet Traffic down through RAM, but would also love to see maybe a snippet of vnstat, last spdMerlin result, vpn client status, etc.

I'm guessing the massive customization available on the pfSense one is a bit harder to emulate, because they're putting in the hooks for those widgets, and they're objects that you can drag around the screen....but...just saying....for all you wonderful, smart, capable devlopers out there....it might be a fun challenge

From the network map tab....things *I* (just me, maybe others) think would be pulled into the dashboard view are:

Internet Status blob
Internet traffic live graph
cpu live graphs
RAM live graph
Clients (with the view list button)
add in from elsewhere
Uptime
Temperature (of course!)
VPN Status
addons
maybe the most recent summary of all usage pic if using vnstat
and the last test result if using spdmerlin
(or have choices available from the addons when dictating the layout of the dashboard)

Have you checked out scMerlin?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

So recently, I went down a pfSense rabbit hole and experimented with running my home network through that. I even finally buckled down and learned to do a Wireguard to NordVPN implementation, etc.

Ultimately, the thing that pulled me back was my inability to get an Open NAT on my xbox(es) like I could with Merlin (believe me, I went deep into the NAT topics and tried multiple configurations to move it off of strict. best I could do was Moderate)......Plus, I liked a lot of the implementations and the presentations of them via the merlin menus. Anyway, I digress....

What I really did enjoy about the pfSense experience was the dashboard, and i'm wondering if there's something that can be done on the Merlin side of things, either as an add-on or tweaks on the Network Map page. I'm guessing those are probably required to remain as they are, but guessing an addon page could pull from it the relevant parts, as well as others....

For me, I like seeing the System Status tab, from Internet Traffic down through RAM, but would also love to see maybe a snippet of vnstat, last spdMerlin result, vpn client status, etc.

I'm guessing the massive customization available on the pfSense one is a bit harder to emulate, because they're putting in the hooks for those widgets, and they're objects that you can drag around the screen....but...just saying....for all you wonderful, smart, capable devlopers out there....it might be a fun challenge

From the network map tab....things *I* (just me, maybe others) think would be pulled into the dashboard view are:

Internet Status blob
Internet traffic live graph
cpu live graphs
RAM live graph
Clients (with the view list button)
add in from elsewhere
Uptime
Temperature (of course!)
VPN Status
addons
maybe the most recent summary of all usage pic if using vnstat
and the last test result if using spdmerlin
(or have choices available from the addons when dictating the layout of the dashboard)

It might be a fun challenge, but inherently complex.

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

It might be a fun challenge, but inherently complex.

looking at your track record so far, it sounds like the perfect recipe for @Viktor Jaep mission!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

looking at your track record so far, it sounds like the perfect recipe for @Viktor Jaep mission!

A recipe for disaster!!

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

A recipe for disaster!!

I know several users who have survived being your guinea pig. I think we will be fine!

 

[visortgw]

A recipe for disaster!!

Your last effort -- backupmon -- is a recipe for disaster recovery!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

I know several users who have survived being your guinea pig. I think we will be fine!

Other than the vnStat stuff, I'd say most of what is being requested is already available in RTRMON... except for the fact that it's not in a pretty pfsense-like GUI.

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

Other than the vnStat stuff, I'd say most of what is being requested is already available in RTRMON... except for the fact that it's not in a pretty pfsense-like GUI.

Instead, it has a pretty ssh-terminal-like-GUI!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Instead, it has a pretty ssh-terminal-like-GUI!

Which I'm obviously a big fan of! LOL

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

Which I'm obviously a big fan of! LOL

me too! only if there was away to bring that feel to the webui.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

me too! only if there was away to bring that feel to the webui.

Easy peasy... File -> Save As -> Webui.html!

 

[dev_null]

Internet Status blob
Internet traffic live graph
cpu live graphs
RAM live graph
Clients (with the view list button)
add in from elsewhere
Uptime
Temperature (of course!)
VPN Status
addons
maybe the most recent summary of all usage pic if using vnstat
and the last test result if using spdmerlin
(or have choices available from the addons when dictating the layout of the dashboard)

Have you looked at installing the entware package "netdata" on your router (opkg install netdata > reboot)? It has quite a bit of what you're looking for (not speedtest nor vnStat but a lot of the live information). On a modern router (AX86U) the resource use didn't seem horrible.

In the end I didn't need to monitor live very often, so I disabled it (/opt/etc/init.d/S60netdata stop) but it's still installed.

 

[dev_null]

Have you looked at installing the entware package "netdata" on your router (opkg install netdata > reboot)? It has quite a bit of what you're looking for (not speedtest nor vnStat but a lot of the live information). On a modern router (AX86U) the resource use didn't seem horrible.

In the end I didn't need to monitor live very often, so I disabled it (/opt/etc/init.d/S60netdata stop) but it's still installed.

View attachment 53349

... and to access it once it's running: router.ip.address:19999

 

[JR Godwin]

I've used scMerlin in the past, and it's not quite what I was meaning. @dev_null thanks for that suggestion, I'll give it an install and play with it. I suspect I'll eventually go down the same path as you in terms of not needing to monitor very often....I suspect it's because I'd done my dive into pfSense, and then coming back to merlin that I've got my drive piqued. Cheers!

 

[dev_null]

I've used scMerlin in the past, and it's not quite what I was meaning. @dev_null thanks for that suggestion, I'll give it an install and play with it. I suspect I'll eventually go down the same path as you in terms of not needing to monitor very often....I suspect it's because I'd done my dive into pfSense, and then coming back to merlin that I've got my drive piqued. Cheers!

There's apparently a python plugin for netstat that pulls from vnStat on "full" linux installs (see: https://github.com/NoahTroy/netdata....plugin/vnstat#vnstat-monitoring-with-netdata and https://github.com/netdata/netdata/pull/8955) but I'm not going to comment about python on Merlin.

I confess that with the daily digests that Jack and I built into vnStat on Merlin I don't often look at the graphs, I just glace at the reports in the email. Perhaps @Viktor Jaep could consider creating a daily email digest of some of the attributes captured in his fine add-on?

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

@Viktor Jaep
Looks like every one is ready for the test phase. What about team Jaep?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

@Viktor Jaep
Looks like every one is ready for the test phase. What about team Jaep?

Team Jaep is fully on board with also suggesting the netdata addon!