Traffic consumption monitoring at home network

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zespri

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Topic # 204208 21-Sep-2016 21:25

Hello all,

I'm considering getting a wireless broadband, but I need to analyze traffic spending habits within my household, so I could understand how much traffic per month I need. That is I want to know how many traffic per day, week and month each device (ip address) on my home network consumes, as well as aggregate across all devices. This will allow me to find out how much traffic I need (in total), plus I would be able to gauge, what percentage goes to streaming to TV's what percentage is desktop usage, what is mobile devices usage, etc.

What is the easiest, most practical way to achieve that?

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Reply # 1638413 21-Sep-2016 21:37

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What's your budget?

To do this you're going to need to buy new hardware and/or software. There is no easy way to do what you want to do.

macuser

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Reply # 1638414 21-Sep-2016 21:44

Why don't you analyse your existing data usage? If you have all these things already...sounds like you already have internet and should log into your ISP's web portal and check out how many GB's you use per month currently.

zespri

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Reply # 1638416 21-Sep-2016 21:57

macuser:

Why don't you analyse your existing data usage? If you have all these things already...sounds like you already have internet and should log into your ISP's web portal and check out how many GB's you use per month currently.

I just switched a provider a few days ago and I'm not happy with the switch. So I'm looking for options.

sbiddle:

What's your budget?

To do this you're going to need to buy new hardware and/or software. There is no easy way to do what you want to do.

@sbiddle What kind of hardware will work the best?

mdf

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Reply # 1638422 21-Sep-2016 22:07

Some routers include this functionality, or can be added by running open source firmware. Advanced Tomato looks the nicest.

zespri

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Reply # 1638427 21-Sep-2016 22:26

mdf:

Some routers include this functionality, or can be added by running open source firmware. Advanced Tomato looks the nicest.

This particular picture is not per IP though, it's per interface... Can it definitely do per IP?

BarTender

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Reply # 1638433 21-Sep-2016 22:44

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If you can find some hardware that is supported by https://www.gargoyle-router.com/ then you should be away.

The TPLink WR1043ND is a common router used for this as it's pretty easy to flash the OpenWRT/Gargoyle firmware onto it and as long as you don't want 100+MBit internet connection then you should be fine.

zespri

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Reply # 1638439 21-Sep-2016 23:34

BarTender:

If you can find some hardware that is supported by https://www.gargoyle-router.com/ then you should be away.

The TPLink WR1043ND is a common router used for this as it's pretty easy to flash the OpenWRT/Gargoyle firmware onto it and as long as you don't want 100+MBit internet connection then you should be fine.

I had run gargoyle for several years up to the moment I got a mikrotik. Gargoyle does not do that unfortunately. Or does it?

spronkey

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Reply # 1638441 21-Sep-2016 23:45

I'm really surprised that some manufacturer hasn't included this in their firmware, especially on the higher end consumer routers targeted at 'families' with 'many devices'.

I took to installing monitoring software on each PC, and then assume the rest comes from smartphones. If something looks awry on those, off the wifi they go.

Hammerer

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Reply # 1638469 22-Sep-2016 02:35

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spronkey:

I'm really surprised that some manufacturer hasn't included this in their firmware, especially on the higher end consumer routers targeted at 'families' with 'many devices'.

I'm really not surprised that consumer routers don't have it.

I can think of some reasons why:

Consumer routers are commonly all-in-one boxes with integrated WiFi and common consumer features like simple VPN, media streaming, and USB NAS. Buying more expensive consumer routers usually gives higher throughput but no great gain in features. They don't tend to be strong in "business" features like manageability, scalability, security, load balancing and redundancy, etc. because that is a different segment.
Lack of desire to pay for what it costs to get monitoring. Whether the monitoring uses a router or UTM gateway or network probe, consumers don't want to pay for these devices.
Lack of major demand for it by consumers. As others have pointed out, our ISPs measure our Internet traffic for us. Plus a lot of people don't need to limit their Internet bandwidth, e.g. the one third of NZ broadband users with unlimited plans.

hio77

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Reply # 1638470 22-Sep-2016 02:49

spronkey:

I'm really surprised that some manufacturer hasn't included this in their firmware, especially on the higher end consumer routers targeted at 'families' with 'many devices'.

I took to installing monitoring software on each PC, and then assume the rest comes from smartphones. If something looks awry on those, off the wifi they go.

Monitoring devices is difficult really, so many variables to consider, storage for said logs, making the UI friendly, list goes on..

Personally, i monitor usage at the main switches, and router level across a few mediums. It is actually quite interesting to see how each platform bottoms out or miscalculates.

House is fully hardwired, mobile devices make up 35~45% of our network traffic each month. This usage is consistently on the rise. That does not include any tv media players, smart tvs etc they are all hardwired.

My network is by far not an example i would generally use given the volumes and patterns, however in terms of wireless utilisation overall, i would put it well below what you see in an 'average household' nowdays..

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

sbiddle

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Reply # 1638494 22-Sep-2016 07:27

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spronkey:

I'm really surprised that some manufacturer hasn't included this in their firmware, especially on the higher end consumer routers targeted at 'families' with 'many devices'.

I took to installing monitoring software on each PC, and then assume the rest comes from smartphones. If something looks awry on those, off the wifi they go.

I guess the fact nobody does this really shows it's a feature that customers simply don't ask for.

There isn't really an off the shelf solution that's going to easily do what the OP wants to do. The best solution would be a Mikrotik router with traffic accounting. If you wanted to capture traffic types with DPI a Ubiquiti USG would be the most cost effective solution.

davidcole

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Reply # 1638495 22-Sep-2016 07:34

zespri:

BarTender:

If you can find some hardware that is supported by https://www.gargoyle-router.com/ then you should be away.

The TPLink WR1043ND is a common router used for this as it's pretty easy to flash the OpenWRT/Gargoyle firmware onto it and as long as you don't want 100+MBit internet connection then you should be fine.

I had run gargoyle for several years up to the moment I got a mikrotik. Gargoyle does not do that unfortunately. Or does it?

What you you mean doesn't to that? You wanted per device and aggregate usage. Ie

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zespri

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Reply # 1638503 22-Sep-2016 07:51

davidcole:

What you you mean doesn't to that? You wanted per device and aggregate usage. Ie

Sorry, does this screenshot show usage per device? Are there weekly and monthly aggregates?

Also, when you post screenies like this, it helps better if you don't exclude menus, so that it's easier to understand where this is located in the UI.

Thanks!

davidcole

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Reply # 1638511 22-Sep-2016 08:04

zespri:

davidcole:

What you you mean doesn't to that? You wanted per device and aggregate usage. Ie

Sorry, does this screenshot show usage per device? Are there weekly and monthly aggregates?

Also, when you post screenies like this, it helps better if you don't exclude menus, so that it's easier to understand where this is located in the UI.

Thanks!

So it stores information per device, but there's no single gui view that shows you per device. So while the information is there, it's not presented as you want. You can download all the data as a CSV

All these views are in the status section of the UI.

sidefx

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Reply # 1638528 22-Sep-2016 08:20

@davidcole: Can't you change the "Display Type" to IP or Hostname to break it down per device?

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