Home network monitoring?

[Scothew]

Anyone know of software that will help determine whats going on with my network thats eating up my bandwidth here at home?

I have hughesnet satellite so limited on bandwidth used per day. I have a small network here (5 computers for work/personal, wii and my dishnetwork box is hooked up). I keep virus scan and malware scans current and ran in a frequent basis. I have a d-link router that everything is ran through.

It just seems like the past few weeks, my bandwidth is being chewed through alot more than normal. Even running my vpn all day and my work apps like normal, i usually wouldnt use btu around 1/3rd of my alloted bandwidth in a daily span, and right now at noon im sitting at 32% remaining. I know where part of it went today (accidental download when itunes launched) buts still over the norm on what i typically used.

is there any software out there that can scan my network and run in the background that will show me whats connecting out and using the most? Preferably free. ive been toying with perfmon on my work computers and all seems fairly normal there. Id really like to monitor website useage/downloads etc. So I could see what sites dragging it down the most.

TIA guys :)

[emopunker2004]

http://www.wireshark.org/download.html

info on it
http://www.wireshark.org/about.html

[kickerb]

wireshark is VERY complex software and has a steep learning curve, just an FYI. if I had to guess, its the WII that is eating your throughput.

You could also try this (http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm).

But it will only work on the PCs. And you will have to install it on each one which is a downside :(

[fid]

I feel for you having to deal with HughesNet. I assume it's your only option? My experience with them was awful. I live in the stix and couldn't get any other service at the time. The utilities never even bothered running gas lines out here. The service was always slow, you had to constantly watch how much you used. If you go over your daily allowance, you may as well shut it off it's so useless. Of course, they are happy to charge you alot more money for minor upgrades in service.

Three days after the warranty ran out the whole system stopped working. When the technician came out, the first thing he said was, "Whoever installed your dish did it wrong." At that point I had to remind the technician that he was in fact the installer that put it all up. He didn't have much to say to that, but he was very happy to re install everything and it would only cost $125 if I were to dig the hole and provide all the materials to finish the job. By the way, he wanted me to dig a hole with my post hole digger in the middle of January. I was so pissed, I told him to take a hike. I cancelled the service, settled on the balance of the contract and never looked back.

These days I use a pay as you go air card from Walmart. HughesNet sucks balls. Hopefully someone can help yo monitor your usage so they don't bleed you dry.

[Scothew]

Its been totally fine up until recently. And I thought about the wii aspect, but its been hooked up over a year with no issues.

Yeah sadly hughes is my only option as bellsouth wont finish teh fiber to the area.

Thanks guys for the input. I downloaded wireshark so gonna play with it. Complex doesnt scare me thankfully. I put it on my win2k3 box already, now i just gota figure out how to make it capture the rest of hte network or will i have to put it on all of the other machines in the house?

[markem]

Does your router have a statistics page? If it does, you can check to see which machines are out of line, bandwidth wise. A simple method is to just periodically refresh the page to see the updates or you can log all the information off to another machine, if your router supports this. You can also use a network monitoring tool, such as the one from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=4865) or others mentioned in this thread.

Note that you should also check your firewall logs to see if part of your bandwidth isn't going to hackers trying to break in to your system. If this is the case, your provider should forgive that bandwidth because their upstream protection isn't working properly.

Finally, a real simple check is to shut down machines when not in use. It's a very gross technique, but can give you a good feel for what is happening. You can use this technique as a process of elimination as well.

[kickerb]

Its been totally fine up until recently. And I thought about the wii aspect, but its been hooked up over a year with no issues.

Yeah sadly hughes is my only option as bellsouth wont finish teh fiber to the area.

Thanks guys for the input. I downloaded wireshark so gonna play with it. Complex doesnt scare me thankfully. I put it on my win2k3 box already, now i just gota figure out how to make it capture the rest of hte network or will i have to put it on all of the other machines in the house?Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wireshark is only going to give you a snap shot from your NIC card, not the entire network. So to answer your question, it will need to be installed on all machines.

[kickerb]

I actually use little proggy called bandwidth monitor, it is neat because it gives you areport on how much throughput that machine used. You can even set the reports to reflect your billing cycle of your internet bill (which is what i did). I can go in and see an archive of how much up and down data i burned per day, week, month, and year.

[kickerb]

But that one isn't free, its a one time purchase, cheap, but not free.

[Scothew]

I think I figured out a portion of hte problem.

My wife plays Gardens of Time on facebook, and we tested it this morning and just opening and launching the app on there eats up 11MB each time. We closed it so I dont know how much throughput it uses during the course of play, but dang 11MB each time?!

The microsoft app Markem posted earlier is dang nice and alot easier to comprehend than wireshark IMO.

Thanks guys :)

[kickerb]

cool, glad we all could help.

[357]

I think I figured out a portion of hte problem.

My wife plays Gardens of Time on facebook, and we tested it this morning and just opening and launching the app on there eats up 11MB each time. We closed it so I dont know how much throughput it uses during the course of play, but dang 11MB each time?!

The microsoft app Markem posted earlier is dang nice and alot easier to comprehend than wireshark IMO.

Thanks guys :)

Agreed, Mark made some good suggestions. Do you have a router of some kind splitting up your internet connection to multiple devices? It sounds like you do. If so, most of them have a web interface that allows you to configure them. It may also allow you to keep tabs on bandwidth.

To find out, try this:

1. Open a command prompt (Start, Run, cmd, Enter) or under Accessories
2. Type: ipconfig then hit Enter.
3. Note the IP of your gateway. This is usually your router's IP address.
4. Open a browser window and type in that IP. You may need to change the beginning from http://IP to https://IP. Some WiFi routers will also not allow this from a wireless device. So try it from a wired computer.
5. It should prompt you for a name and password. Once you're in, you may find a way to see what IPs are using all your bandwidth at any given time.


Another individual PC idea would be to just right click on the taskbar, choose Stark Task Manager, then click on the networking tab. This will show you current bandwidth usage on that PC.

Mike

[BC-Axeman]

Arpspoof the router and run Wireshark against it or use a 2 nic box as a forwarder before the router and sniff the packets as they go through.
If you don't understand the above it gets more difficult. :D

P.S. That MS app is pretty cool, you would think it would come installed by default.

[Scothew]

Agreed, Mark made some good suggestions. Do you have a router of some kind splitting up your internet connection to multiple devices? It sounds like you do. If so, most of them have a web interface that allows you to configure them. It may also allow you to keep tabs on bandwidth.

To find out, try this:

1. Open a command prompt (Start, Run, cmd, Enter) or under Accessories
2. Type: ipconfig then hit Enter.
3. Note the IP of your gateway. This is usually your router's IP address.
4. Open a browser window and type in that IP. You may need to change the beginning from http://IP to https://IP. Some WiFi routers will also not allow this from a wireless device. So try it from a wired computer.
5. It should prompt you for a name and password. Once you're in, you may find a way to see what IPs are using all your bandwidth at any given time.


Another individual PC idea would be to just right click on the taskbar, choose Stark Task Manager, then click on the networking tab. This will show you current bandwidth usage on that PC.

Mike

I've messed around in the web interface on it, Its got internet sessions area and stats but doesn't really give me alot of useful info. if you wanna look at an emulator, this is the same firmware and router i use. http://support.dlink.com/emulators/dir825/113NA/Login.html

[lenomike9]

I have been using very specialized home network monitoring software.

[pnoon]

I have been using very specialized home network monitoring software.

Does it work in China?

[Steve]

Does it work in China?

:noon:noon