Linux Network Administratoramp;#039;s Guide (3rd Edition) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

8.4. Resetting the Counters

The IP accounting counters will overflow if you leave them long
enough. If they overflow, you will have difficulty determining the
value they actually represent. To avoid this problem, you should read
the accounting data periodically, record it, and then reset the
counters back to zero to begin collecting accounting information for
the next accounting interval.

The iptables command provides you with a simple
means of doing this:

# iptables -Z

You can even combine the list and zeroing actions together to ensure
that no accounting data is lost in between:

# iptables -L -Z -v

This command will first list the accounting data and then immediately
zero the counters and begin counting again. If you are interested in
collecting and using this information regularly, you would probably
want to put this command into a script that recorded the output and
stored it somewhere, and execute the script periodically using the
cron command.