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All dedicated server packages include a set monthly traffic quota. Hetzner monitors all accounts and bills R0.007 for each MB of traffic that exceeds the monthly quota on a South African server . German servers offer unlimited traffic, with a bandwidth restriction at 2000 GB.

Traffic monitoring

konsoleH, Hetzner’s award-wining proprietary control panel, makes it possible for you to monitor your traffic usage on a regular basis.  You can search for an IP Address to view its traffic statistics and filter these according to various billing periods. A traffic report is generated according to the selected report type and specified time period.

It is important that you regularly use this tool to check for any unusual traffic activity.

• Steps to access this tool are included below:

Traffic Reporting:

• Total Traffic

Displays the total traffic, incoming and outgoing requests, generated by one IP address over a period of time that you are able to specify. Over-usage charges generated are clearly displayed on the graph. Information recorded in the ‘total traffic’ report is what is used for billing purposes as it includes all protocols and means of access, as logged by the router serving the data centre.

• Per Protocol

Displays a breakdown of traffic, incoming and outgoing requests, per protocol (HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP, MySQL, SSH and other) generated by one IP address over a period of time that you are able to specify.

• Per Domain

Displays a breakdown of traffic generated per domain over a period of time that you are able to specify. Traffic that is not generally ascribe to a particular domain includes spam mail that is intercepted by the spam checker, mail sending or deliveries that fail during the transaction and need to be resent and mail download attempts that are interrupted.

Only certain traffic types are logged in a manner that associates their use with a specific domain. These include WWW/HTTP, POP3, SMTP and FTP.  Additional traffic that is not accounted for under the ‘per domain’ report, but contributes to the ‘total traffic’ report, is detailed under ‘per protocol’ traffic report.

Traffic Notifications:

In order to assist you in effectively monitoring your traffic usage, Hetzner has setup a notification system in konsoleH to forewarn you of over-usage.

• Quota threshold

There is a default threshold built into the system which is 20% below your allocated traffic quota (i.e. the percentage threshold will be set to 80%). Should your traffic usage either reach or exceed the default threshold, konsoleH will send a notification email to your inbox, informing you that the threshold has been reached and that there is a possibility of your server exceeding the traffic quota. This email will be sent to your inbox daily by default.

You have the option to adjust your threshold as well as the frequency of these notifications.

• Burst threshold

You have the option to be notified when your server exceeds a certain amount of traffic (which you determine) within a period of time that you specify. For example, if you’d like to be notified when you have used more than 500 MB of traffic within 3 hours, simply set your burst threshold to these values and konsoleH will send a notification email to your inbox, should this threshold be reached.  A default notification is enabled which is set to 200 MB in 1 hour.

Excessive traffic generated due to internet abuse

Hetzner takes responsibility for the operating system and the applications we have deployed on a managed dedicated server. However, we have limited control over applications that can be adjusted by clients to suit their individual needs. These adjustments could entail website content and scripts, applications or utilities running on the server. For example, a site running a third party script where vulnerability exists, may be exploited to upload content or generate mass mail.

Traffic as described above remains the responsibility of the client.

Hetzner’s System Administrators receive hourly notifications, reporting on high traffic volumes on Managed dedicated servers. A modest threshold is set and excessive activity investigated. As such, clients are informed timeously before extreme charges are accumulated. Hetzner, however, cannot guarantee that all malicious activity of this nature will be detected before cost implications are realised.