Network Monitors/Utilities

Hey guys,
I am a student at a University and I live with a few of my friends and we all share a house. We also share the same internet connection, and we have signed up for one of the fastest and most featured services our ISP has to offer. Its six of us living together sharing a 120GB monthly limit. I am the one in-charge of the home network and one of my friends' is in-charge of the internet connection. The problem is, we always run out of our allotted 120GB limit a week before the new limit starts at the first of every month, and so obviously someone is downloading/uploading a lot more than they need to. My network is secure and I have enabled MAC filtering, so surely, no intruder is using this connection. My question is, can anyone recommend any software that will allow me to monitor who (by IP/MAC address) is downloading how much a day/week/month, doesn't really matter. I went on Google and found nothing but monitors that only monitor my PC's internet activity, and I already have a really good one, SysMetrix. I also went on live.pirillo.com and asked the people there but they all said, good question, haven't heard of that one before. Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thank You,
Sam-M

Tags: apple, ip, linux, mac, monitors, network, os, tools, utilities, windows

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by JT on January 27, 2009 at 11:10pm: There's a free application that I use called Wireshark.

Be careful when you configure it. Make sure that you read all of the setup directions. The logs for all of the activities could get to be huge and could potentially crash a machine.

This program is basically a Packet Sniffer Application; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nathan M. on January 27, 2009 at 11:26pm: Use PRTG. Setup SNMP on all the computers and setup PRTG to monitor all the PC's in the house. It wont track how much they use, but you will be able to see who's all downloading/uploading and how fast.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by TyphoidKitten on January 27, 2009 at 11:31pm: lol, you should just set there accounts so they cant download anything unless you say they can...that'll teach'em.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Greg on January 28, 2009 at 7:01am: Great Question !

I have a 250 GB per Month Upload/Download limit associated with my internet connection as well. One of which I never knew existed as a limitation when i signed up with this ISP many years ago. Then out of the blue, some clown from the ISP called with ALOT of attitude and informed me that i was going WAY over my allotted 250 GB per Month and I was risking being shut down. Now that's all fine and good... but first, this was never spelled out when I signed up with this ISP. Second, I am not hosting anything that would create huge amounts of traffic nor am I distributing "pirated" data. Third, my attitude rich buddy at the ISP would not point me to a solution of which I could monitor traffic over a handful of multiple platform computers so that I might have an idea of where my household stands with their monthly usage.

nEway...that's my vent for the morning....

Suggestions on some really good multi platform software that can be used to monitor internet bandwidth usage would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks In Advance !; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mateus Augusto Lopes on January 28, 2009 at 7:09am: I only know to say how many connection is downloading at the moment the speed, but never how much you used it.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael SanAngelo on January 28, 2009 at 10:28am: To monitor the amount the computer is using, I've always used gkrellm and set it to automatically run at login. It monitors my network speed both ways including to and from on the private lan as well as give me the amount used in my current login session. I even have it set to log my total daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly usage.

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.html

I know it a gtk app but I find it really useful when monitoring what my computer is doing and it has a low resource usage. Its only good if its running. :)

Hmm, try this as well. http://www.ethereal.com/ and another to look into is EtherApe.

Cheers!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael SanAngelo on January 28, 2009 at 10:49am: Almost forgot the format string for the chart label in gkrellm.

Code: \f\ww\c\f$M\n\f\at\.$t\n\f\ar\.$r\f\ww\f\n\f\at\.$o\n\f\ar\.$i\b\c\f$L\b\c\f$L

That with give you in/out at the moment and in/out during the time its running as well as a button to reset the chart and one for the net usage records. I came in handy when monitoring my wireless. One time it measured close to 80GB in one month for my pc alone!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by kyle kinter on January 28, 2009 at 1:35pm: wow i have never herad of internet limitations only around big citys
but im glad my ISP has unlimited for 34.00 / month and that is with there shity cable t.v.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Greg on January 29, 2009 at 12:08pm: Indeed... ISP Bandwidth limitations are ridiculous for paying customers. Especially when it is not explained upon signing up. Not to mention, they give me no tools of which a household can monitor their usage over multiple computers during the span of a month.

Again, if anyone could point me to some PC and Mac based software that will allow me to monitor the accumulated bandwidth usage I would really appreciate it!

Thanks for the Info !; ▶ Reply to This