Monitor Internet Bandwidth?

S

Sayth

Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2001
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618
Hi guys,
I'm wondering how I can monitor my work's average network bandwidth speed during the average work day (8am - 4pm).

We're looking to upgrade our lines, but need to prove our need to the BigWigs upstairs. Right now our 4-6mbps line isn't cutting for all 50 of us.

What do you network gurus suggest?:confused:
 
How much detail?

What kind of device is all the internet passing through right now? You need something central that everything passes through (a router, computer, etc) to monitor it.
 
hmm good point.

We do have a Cisco router sharing to 3x 24 port switches and I should have access to that router. I'll look into that, but would I have to place an ntop probe at that router interface?
 
Sayth said:
hmm good point.

We do have a Cisco router sharing to 3x 24 port switches and I should have access to that router. I'll look into that, but would I have to place an ntop probe at that router interface?
Click to expand...

if they are cisco switches you can probally setup SPAN, i am actauly going to be doing a project with span and ntop here soon
 
MRTG will do you just fine. You can either set it up on a windows server or a linux box. There are plenty of decent walkthroughs on the internets for configuring MRTG on a ubuntu/debian distro if you look on the googler.

 
Awesome guys. I remember MRTG in Linux from school. I should be able to get it up and running no problem.

I will try Windows first, but will build a Linux box to do the job if I need to. Do you think VMware would work or no?
We're waiting for a new shipment of computers so right now I am a little low on hardware.
 
Any of the SNMP tools will tell you how much bandwidth, but won't tell you what.

Since you have access to the router, try enabling netflow and try out one of the netflow collectors.... this will breakdown the actual type of traffic passing through your pipe
 
Okay so I am installing perl and MRTG for windows right now but as I read the installation guide it says I need to know the SNMP port number and the SNMPOID as well as the read-only SNMP community string.

This network was set up about 2 years ago and no one knows the router configuration as there is high turn-around and there is no one I could even ask that still works here. I'm not sure if they're let me tap into it, but I don't have the cabling to enter the Cisco terminal configuration anyway.

Is there any way to Find this out remotely through a computer attached to the network?

Sorry if my terminology is confusing here... Been a loooong time since my CCNA training and this is really the first time I've had to call on it in the working world.
 
I'd be checking to see who is hogging the bandwidth. One of our networks is a 4.5Mb line and around 50 pc's and no lag issues with it. It used to be a T1 and even then there were not any serious problems. Unless you have some programs running real time streaming such as stock trading software you shouldn't need to upgrade.
 
Thanks Darthkim, but as to access to the router my boss said it's not that important. We can't afford the network to go down so if I screw up or need to reboot the router then there will be hell. So if I can't figure it out with as little effort possible then he will just BS the proposal.

Understandable as this isn't even my job. I have other things to do, but I thought it would be interesting to see what I remember from my CCNA. Which as I've come to realize it very little.

I appreciate all the help and might fool around with MRTG for the hell of it.

Maybe I'll just use some online speed tests like this one, but I'm sure they're not very accurate. Maybe I'll Photoshop the screen shots of the results Haha :p

Thanks again
 
@ Mister Natural

Thanks, but it's really because 3 computers right now do some heavy filesharing with other companies. so in a day they can end up with downloading up to 5Gb or more and uploading nearly that much to.

The reason for getting an average speed is to explain to the bigwigs why a T1 would be better than what we have. T1 = 1.5Mbps up and down guaranteed where what we have is 4-6Mbps down 256kbps up and the representative we spoke to said in our location between 8am-4pm we probably get about 300kbps.

Thats what it feels like on an average day is around 300-400k
 
Our 4.5Mb connection is actually 3 T1's combined which is much different than your connection. In your situation it sounds like an upgrade is in order.

Good luck!
 
You do have to (unless it is already) do a few simple configuration tasks in the Cisco router to get SNMP working.
 
Sayth said:
Okay so I am installing perl and MRTG for windows right now but as I read the installation guide it says I need to know the SNMP port number and the SNMPOID as well as the read-only SNMP community string.

This network was set up about 2 years ago and no one knows the router configuration as there is high turn-around and there is no one I could even ask that still works here. I'm not sure if they're let me tap into it, but I don't have the cabling to enter the Cisco terminal configuration anyway.

Is there any way to Find this out remotely through a computer attached to the network?

Sorry if my terminology is confusing here... Been a loooong time since my CCNA training and this is really the first time I've had to call on it in the working world.
Click to expand...

If you don't have a console cable you can try to TELNET in. If you're lucky it's enabled. Either way you need the password.
 
Solution...

I chose this free tool from TCPIQ that seems to do just what I want it to. I'm sure it's not accurate but it's fairly close!

Thanks guys!
 
Sayth said:
Solution...

I chose this free tool from TCPIQ that seems to do just what I want it to. I'm sure it's not accurate but it's fairly close!

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

That looks like it's just a speed test, not going to show your usage.

MRTG is the best way to go for long term, but if you want something quick and dirty, and easy.

Download PRTG, it's free for up to 3 sensors, it doesn't get any easier to setup then that.

FWIW, Cacti is great, but overkill for monitoring traffic on one device.
 
I'm wondering how I can monitor my work's average network bandwidth speed during the average work day (8am - 4pm).
Click to expand...

Speed is all I'm looking for. Thanks though!

So far TCPIQ is fairly accurate!
 
I've been using ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer 6 trial version on our Satellite Internet system in Iraq to keep track of individual user's bandwidth usages and it's working quite well. Easy to install in Windows, collects data exported from my Cisco 851W in a SQL DB, and displays in a website accessible locally or remotely. The nice thing about this one is that it shows source and destination IP addresses, so you can identify your high bandwidth users, and what they are downloading/uploading from, then setup ACL's to block them.
 
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