looking for bandwidth monitor/logger

[Baz_]

hi, im looking for a remote bandwidth monitor/logger, so i can monitor bandwidth on other computers on my network as someone in the house is using a lot of bandwidth, i know sounds strange

preferably free :D

[sc302 Veteran]

custom firmware or a proxy. --- both free

pfsense

dd-wrt

tomato

the issue with the custom firmware monitoring, there may not be enough memory on the router.

You can't simply do this with software loaded on to a pc, the router won't allow it. You can install software on multiple pc's but that would require you to remote into each individual pc and look at them.

[Cupcakes]

Perhaps something like Cacti?

I know for a [compatible] router, DD-WRT has a bandwidth section but that calculates it in general and not per device on the network itself.

[sc302 Veteran]

I would guess snmp would have to be enabled on the pc's and public would possibly need to be setup, provided this is done and can't be disabled maybe cacti could work. But you would need to touch every machine.

[dragon2611]

  On 18/01/2011 at 20:20, sc302 said:

I would guess snmp would have to be enabled on the pc's and public would possibly need to be setup, provided this is done and can't be disabled maybe cacti could work. But you would need to touch every machine.

You might be able to enable it on the router, although depending on the router it may or may not be possible to get data for each port.

Some of them do and others just show an aggregate reading for all of the lan ports

[sc302 Veteran]

most routers are switches, a switch is a layer 2 device that directs traffic to the proper port and does not broadcast across the jacks like a hub does. I don't know of any router that is a hub. If can be done at the router level, it has access to each port and sees the data it is passing to each port. Logging can be done at the router level provided there is a option to do so, I only know of custom firmwares that do this.

There are a couple of different ways to do this, have everything connect to a switch have a switch connect to a hub and have your router and a monitoring pc (with a good sniffer on it) attached to the hub. You would also need to have your wireless connected to the hub as well (either at the switch level behind the hub or directly connected to the hub, but not at the router level). The other way to do it is replace the router with a pc based router and have it use pfsense, monowall, or ip cop, and then it can log traffic without enabling or installing anything else on the network.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

I use DU Meter.

It isn't free, but is very good.

If you have a limit then it'll automatically tell you when you're close.