Internet Bandwidth Usage on Home Network

[hein86]

Good day all

I know this question has been posted numerous times, so I don't know whether I should open an old thread or start a new one. The setup about this option is somewhat different and I'll explain shortly and what I want to achieve:

I want to monitor all internet traffic on a network. The network consist of 3 laptops, 2 desktops, 5 iPhones, 2 multimedia players, 1 smart TV and a network multi functional printer. The router I'm using currently is a Cell C router or a Huawei B315 LTE router. The router is currently set as the DHCP server, and also 2.4GHz and 5GHz wifi.

I want to setup a device attached to the network, acting as a proxy, monitoring all internet traffic to show how much data is consumed by each device (and traffic type would be a bonus). If the device can limit certain devices to not exceed a certain amount of data it would also be a bonus.

I have little experience on openSuSE and Ubuntu as well as Raspberry Pi. I have tried pfSense, IPCop, Endian and Untangle but all of them works best with two network cards.

The device I want to add would be something like the Intel NUC (Celeron, 2GB memory, 160GB hard drive). It uses little space, very noise and consume a lot less electricity than a 300W PSU.

I have read about DD-WRT and Gargoyle but I'm not sure whether the above routers are compatible.

If the above is possible, where would be the best place to start?

 

[labratza]

I use PFsense at office with an intel nuc but use a USB to Cat5 converter and works like a charm been running for almost 8 months now

 

[hein86]

Hi Labratza

Can you monitor wireless traffic on the devices as well? Can you elaborate on how your router is setup and its functionality?

 

[Muttley]

UniFi USG - it'll even give you lovely graphs

 

[hein86]

Hi Marlin

Does the UniFi support wireless? If so, it will become the access point and we switch off the wireless on the router. I suppose all WAN traffic will be forwarded to the LTE router. Would this be very difficult to set up?

 

[HeftyCrab]

Hi Marlin

Does the UniFi support wireless? If so, it will become the access point and we switch off the wireless on the router. I suppose all WAN traffic will be forwarded to the LTE router. Would this be very difficult to set up?

This will become the router. You will need something else acting as the AP.

 

[hein86]

Hi everyone. I went out yesterday for about the whole day. 1 laptop, 1 PC and 2 phones were connected to the internet and 10GB data was gone last night. Which one of the above will assist me to determine the usage per device and can set a monthly limit for each device?

 

[ODTech]

Hi everyone. I went out yesterday for about the whole day. 1 laptop, 1 PC and 2 phones were connected to the internet and 10GB data was gone last night. Which one of the above will assist me to determine the usage per device and can set a monthly limit for each device?

Get a Unifi AP and a Unifi Gateway.
The units need a controller to be able to monitor and graph the data you need but you can use a always on pc for that or buy the Unifi controller gadget. The controller software is free.

If you want to convert the whole network to wireless then you only need the Unifi AP and controller software. After registering the AP on the controller software and pointing the controller to you router ip any traffic from and to the Unifi AP will get logged and you can see to which IP ip/hostname it went. You can even turn on hotspot mode to print tickets. You can customize the tickets for time, data and speed.

 

[hein86]

Hi ODTech. Thank you for the response. I will definitely look into the Unifi option. Will get back as soon as I have any further questions.

 

[sajunky]

Good advice, but if you don't need all WiFi option, then consider inexpensive managed switches like TP-Link SG-105E/108E for bandwith stats and limiting.

Do you have any Win10 PC? It can eat 10GB a day with automatic updates easy. It can download image, crash, delete the image and after couple minutes start downloading again. Check it out.