Looking for a way to monitor/control my network

[CaptainMorgan89]

Hi guys,

Ive been looking for this for a very long time, maybe you can help.

Basically im looking for a router or program that I can use to actively monitor and control how much bandwidth individual computers in my house can use.

Does anyone here know of a program or router that would allow me to simply look at a live feed that shows how much data is being sent/received from certain IP/Mac addresse and on top of that, allow me to "set" a cap of what speed/ how much bandwidth can be used by that givin IP/mac at any point in time? (Or permanently)

Thanks!

[BakedA|aska]

The equipment to accomplish this is expensive. Basically, what you need is a layer-3 switch that supports QoS mapping. I'd recommend a Cisco 3550 or 3560 as probably the most economical solution.

[CaptainMorgan89]

Jeeze, So there arnt any cheaper ways of doing this then?

Grrr, What about a computer level software program? IE. Something you would install that would not allow anything past a set amount of bandwidth.

Thanks :)

[BakedA|aska]

I'm sure there is *something* out there that can perhaps do this, but I'd honestly consider it a travesty to do it with anything short of a QoS mapping on an L3 switch.

[CaptainMorgan89]

lol, I consider $2000 for a switch to be a travesty :mad:

Thanks for your help so far though :D

[BakedA|aska]

lol, I consider $2000 for a switch to be a travesty :mad:

Thanks for your help so far though :D

Pimpin' ain't easy, but it's necessary. ;)

Seriously though, you can get the hardware you need for less than a grand. My recommendation: http://cgi.ebay.com/Cisco-WS-C3550-24PWR-EMI-Switch-PoE-3550-GBIC_W0QQitemZ380020892999QQihZ025QQcategoryZ51268QQssPageNa meZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This switch does all the L3 stuff needed for full QoS setups.

If this is for your home, and not a professional environment, and your bittorrent traffic is clogging up the network, you should look into gamer-specific home gateways. The D-link Gamer's Lounge has some rudimentary QoS that you can apply, as do the gamer-specific products of a couple other companies as well.

In the end, though, if you want to portion off percentages of bandwidth to specific protocols, IP address, subnets, or what have you, an L3 switch is the best way to go as it offers the most granular control over your queuing and forwarding.

[CaptainMorgan89]

Pimpin' ain't easy, but it's necessary. ;)


Aint that the truth :cool:

Ugh, That price is a ton better, I might have to check out our local swap shop (they get things from the UW) and see what they have, otherwise the Dstink might work.

[BakedA|aska]

Aint that the truth :cool:

Ugh, That price is a ton better, I might have to check out our local swap shop (they get things from the UW) and see what they have, otherwise the Dstink might work.

Ahh, nice, a fellow Seattlelite. If you decide to go down that route, drop me a PM and I can lend a hand in getting the QoS maps established. It's not the easiest thing to do.

Say.. I don't suppose you're talking about RE*PC, are you? I worked the Tukwila location for about a year and a half.

[Captain Colonoscopy]

Are you just concerned about like internet bandwidth or overall network bandwidth? If you want to control your LAN bandwidth then you will need something with the capabilites that BakedAlaska is talking about. Your options would be the used 3550 or you could possibly build a switch with an old computer and 7 NICs and run pfsense on it or something. Haven't tried that one yet, I know it does QoS for internets, I imagine the same principles could be applied to LAN ports....

If you are just concerned about your internets then go slap Astaro or Untangle or eBox on a computer and run that as your firewall, setup QoS and you are good to go.

[CaptainMorgan89]

@Baked

I was actually referring to the University of Wisconsin, Thanks for the offer though!

@Captain

Mainly, there are 5 computers in the house along with 3 Xbox 360's and one Wii, everything is wireless except for my server and my xbox.

Its not a life or death sorta thing, I was just wondering what was out there.

Thanks a ton for your help guys!

[dhahlen]

Cisco router and PRTG, not to expensive esp if you're already using a qualified cisco router....

[MorfiusX]

Linksys has a number of business grade switches that will do QoS for about $500-600

[BakedA|aska]

Cisco router and PRTG, not to expensive esp if you're already using a qualified cisco router....

Possibly. The Cisco router products that support QoS and fast/gigE tend to cost about the same as the aforementioned L3 switch. Lemme see what I can dig up though..

[YeOldeStonecat]

How many users? I "think" I read that you can throttle individual LAN ports if you're using DD-WRT firmware.

[`danny]

Cisco router and PRTG, not to expensive esp if you're already using a qualified cisco router....

I back this option, especially PRTG which I recently discovered, it's awesome!

[Captain Colonoscopy]

PRTG looks remarkably similar to MRTG, which is completely free to use on Windows or Linux boxes. No 3 node only junk. Still PRTG seems to be a lot simpler to install . . . looks like it will work with any SNMP compatible network device. So if you had a switch and a router that were both capable of sending bandwidth info to P/MRTG that would give you the information that you needed, per port or IP.

[benutne]

Lies. All lies. If all you want to do is see who is wheezin all the juice, get Smoothwall Express 3.0 (http://www.smoothwall.org/), PuTTY into it after its set up, and run "iftop" at the command line. Very simple bandwidth monitor in realtime. Smoothwall also has bandwith graphs in the web interface, but I prefer the command line one. There are several addons that can monitor and cap bandwidth after a certain threshold has been reached. Search the Smoothwall forums at http://community.smoothwall.org/forum/. If you want to monitor internal bandwidth usage...well. That'll cost ya.