Monitoring Local PCs

[nixforce]

Hi,

Im trying to monitor the ADSL traffic on my account. I would like to be able to see what websites and what protocols people are using to generate the traffic.. Is there a method on the Telkom Mega 100WR2 ADSL modem?

 

[SecretCode]

I don't know of any technique using the Telkom router itself. Somebody else may.

You have two options: install monitoring software (I think "NetLimiter" may help) on each PC - and stop people from disabling it (not reliable if you have power users) - or install another gateway box.

I run SmoothWall (free) on an old PC (practically free), and with a couple of mods it provides very granular tracking - and filtering - of who's doing what. In this case I set the Telkom router to bridge mode and do not use its wireless access point feature - if you rely on that you might have to factor another access point into your costs.

 

[gregmcc]

Or just install a squid proxy on linux and run squid guard. There's also a ton of proxy reports you can generate of traffic per site/ip/logon id etc and you get the added advantage of content being cached.

 

[SecretCode]

Same thing, but streamlined, gregmcc - smoothwall includes squid but is a stripped down linux for easy install of a dedicated firewall.

 

[tristin]

Yeah, Squid would probably be the best option for this. You don't need a hectic machine to run it either - guy I know runs it his linux gateway server quite nicely, and it's a p3

 

[ColinR]

I use ClarkConnect in 3 places, highly recommend it, really is a great distro.
Install takes all of 20minutes on any old machine. I use mainly PII 300Mhz, with 128MB RAM.

Generates usage reports per IP, files shares, SMTP email, Windows Domains, etc, etc.

www.clarkconnect.com