Good way to monitor Bandwidth usage (Router)

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Good way to monitor Bandwidth usage (Router)

waikariboy

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#151227 18-Aug-2014 15:02

Sister trying to find out what one of her kids are using internet for (going over the datacap). Could people recommend a wireless router i can get that is good for something like wrt or tomato so i just run bandwidth monitor on it.

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hio77

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Lizard Networks

#1110557 18-Aug-2014 15:07

Without going into any form of deep packet inspection, or monitoring based on ports (which isnt accurate anyway) a router cant tell you that the data is being used by X Service.

narrowing it down to a certain member in the house is possible depending on implementation however...

if the household is large enough, would moving to an unlimited connection not be a better option than going on a witch hunt however?

a simple steam game could easily be 20GB+ a decent quality youtube video could easily be a GB or so a pop.

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waikariboy

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#1110585 18-Aug-2014 15:44

hio77: Without going into any form of deep packet inspection, or monitoring based on ports (which isnt accurate anyway) a router cant tell you that the data is being used by X Service.

narrowing it down to a certain member in the house is possible depending on implementation however...

if the household is large enough, would moving to an unlimited connection not be a better option than going on a witch hunt however?

a simple steam game could easily be 20GB+ a decent quality youtube video could easily be a GB or so a pop.

What i may of not explained myself. Looking for a router that allows my sister to monitor bandwidth usages, that is all, a simple chart showing MAC address/IP Address and how much data has been used within 30+ days. Thinking a WRT or Tomato Router asking here for some ideas.

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hio77

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#1110590 18-Aug-2014 15:52

Ah well then. Got the wrong end of your question.

I'm particle to tomato since my last use of it.

Have not toyed with any recently though...

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michaelmurfy

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#1110615 18-Aug-2014 16:22

Meraki ;)

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zaptor

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#1110655 18-Aug-2014 16:56

We have Tomato 1.28 running.
I can look at data totals per IP on a daily basis (periodically saved to a USB drive for persistence). I map static IPs so I know how much data a specific node is using.
However, these are just overall totals. There is web log, which you could use to determine surfing behaviour.

For more fine grained analysis I think you'd either need a more expensive switch or setup a transparent bridge of your own for capturing traffic (not as hard as you think).

pinkydot

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#1110666 18-Aug-2014 17:12

Beside tomato, you also can check out Gargoyle .

shrub

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#1110695 18-Aug-2014 18:04

gargoyle is perfect for what you need but you need a specific router and version# to get it working. http://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/doku.php?id=supported_routers_-_tested_routers
I have been using it for a couple of years but now that I'm unlimited i dont even use it anymore

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chevrolux

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#1110698 18-Aug-2014 18:09

Gargoyle is the best choice for this. Has the best bandwidth and quota tools and can be run on a $100 router.

waikariboy

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#1111035 19-Aug-2014 08:34

michaelmurfy: Meraki ;)

how does a MDM client work?

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kimxk

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#1111966 20-Aug-2014 12:25

zaptor: We have Tomato 1.28 running.
I can look at data totals per IP on a daily basis (periodically saved to a USB drive for persistence). I map static IPs so I know how much data a specific node is using.
However, these are just overall totals. There is web log, which you could use to determine surfing behaviour.

For more fine grained analysis I think you'd either need a more expensive switch or setup a transparent bridge of your own for capturing traffic (not as hard as you think).

Agreeing with zaptor for daily totals.

I set this up for a friend using Tomato, specifically Shibby's version, on a Netgear WNR3500L.

Tomato has a wide range of supported routers (just be careful of the specific versions, e.g. it runs on a E4200v1 but not an E4200v2)

See http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=69 for supported routers.