Network traffic monitor

gr00m · 08-19-2009, 02:33 PM

We have a small office and I'm charged with the duty of managing our internet service. Lately we've been having super slow speeds, lots of cut-out's etc. I've called the ISP and they say everything looks good, so maybe it's someone in our office that's d/l stuff and eating up all our bandwidth. We only have a 3mb connection for 12 office computers and a MS SBS.

Does anyone know of a simple free program that I can run locally or on the server that monitors and hopefully logs each mac address and it's bandwidth usage?

Suncoast · 08-20-2009, 05:21 PM

Nothing that fits completely. In the realm of free, you would handle two issues at once with a Linux Proxy "squid" server. You could cache content on your end of the WAN to make it more efficient, and Linux includes several network monitoring tools like mrtg for overall bandwidth monitoring and graphing.

You can usually get a basic idea of how much traffic is going over the link by simply watching the lights flash. Watch for errors on the DSL modem lights when things are acting up. And ask the ISP if they tested the "local loop" when they tell you everything looks good.

08-19-2009, 02:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
gr00m Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 101 OS: WinXP	Network traffic monitor We have a small office and I'm charged with the duty of managing our internet service. Lately we've been having super slow speeds, lots of cut-out's etc. I've called the ISP and they say everything looks good, so maybe it's someone in our office that's d/l stuff and eating up all our bandwidth. We only have a 3mb connection for 12 office computers and a MS SBS. Does anyone know of a simple free program that I can run locally or on the server that monitors and hopefully logs each mac address and it's bandwidth usage?

08-20-2009, 05:21 PM	#2 (permalink)
Suncoast Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Largo, FL, USA Posts: 389 OS: XPP, Linux, 2003, Cisco	Re: Network traffic monitor Nothing that fits completely. In the realm of free, you would handle two issues at once with a Linux Proxy "squid" server. You could cache content on your end of the WAN to make it more efficient, and Linux includes several network monitoring tools like mrtg for overall bandwidth monitoring and graphing. You can usually get a basic idea of how much traffic is going over the link by simply watching the lights flash. Watch for errors on the DSL modem lights when things are acting up. And ask the ISP if they tested the "local loop" when they tell you everything looks good.