[maemo-developers] Starting a 3G traffic monitoring application for N900: some questions

[From: Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh]

Hi,

On 11/29/2010 04:04 PM, a.grandi at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'd like to write an application that allows me to monitor the 3G data
> traffic on my N900.
> I've an option called "SuperInternet" with Tre Italy that gives you
> 100Mb/day Internet traffic.
>
> It's not easy to keep track of transfered data, so I'd like to write a
> desktop applet that monitor traffic and keep the amount updated.
> I'm going to write this in Qt/C++.
>
> I've some question before starting:
>
> 1) How can I detect, from a Qt/C++ application, if a 3G connection is
> estabilished and when it disconnects?
>
> 2) Is it ok if I monitor the trasmitted/received data using ifconfig?
> If yes, how can I execute ifconfig from an application running as
> user? (Usually you can only execute ifconfig if you "sudo gainroot"
> before).
>
> Thanks for your help!
>

You can use DBus to monitor 3G connection states, run dbus-monitor 
--system in a shell to see the paths send, then you can just use QtDbus 
to connect a signal to a function in your app.

I'm not sure if ifconfig is the right way (you might also be able to use 
DBus, I see something about DataCounters in dbus-monitor too), but if 
you find it good enough, you can run /sbin/ifconfig and use QProcess and 
read standard output, the reason you can't run it as user is that /sbin 
isn't in user's $PATH (at least not by default ;))

Regards,
Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh