Network Traffic Log

[DGD]

Is there any software out there (or in Windows XP SP2 Home Edition)
that I can use to log traffic on a home network, including all
wireless traffic amongst 4 computers (one of which is a Mac laptop), a
printer, and a wireless basestation? I am only interested in looking
at the traffic on the home network controlled by the wireless router.
I am interested in knowing which computer/device is initiating
communication on my home network but from the logs I have access to, I
only seem to see those log entries associated with initialization of a
device. These logs are located within the Norton Securiry Software I
have installed on three of the four computers. thanks.


Doug

 

[Jack \(MVP-Networking\).]

Hi
Since the center of communication on your peer-to-peer Network is the
Router, it can only be done if your Router has such a logging capacity.
Otherwise, you have to maintain a logging system on each computer.
A program like this might help, http://www.netlimiter.com/
Jack (MVP-Networking).

 

[DGD]

Hi
Since the center of communication on your peer-to-peer Network is the
Router, it can only be done if your Router has such a logging capacity.
Otherwise, you have to maintain a logging system on each computer.
A program like this might help,http://www.netlimiter.com/
Jack (MVP-Networking).

I'll give it a whirl. Thanks.

 

[jameshanley39]

Is there any software out there (or in Windows XP SP2 Home Edition)
that I can use to log traffic on a home network, including all
wireless traffic amongst 4 computers (one of which is a Mac laptop), a
printer, and a wireless basestation?  I am only interested in looking
at the traffic on the home network controlled by the wireless router.
I am interested in knowing which computer/device is initiating
communication on my home network but from the logs I have access to, I
only seem to see those log entries associated with initialization of a
device.  These logs are located within the Norton Securiry Software I
have installed on three of the four computers.  thanks.

Doug

i've never really done it, but in theory..

You get a network hub - instead of a network switch

and you set your NIC(in the monitoring computer) to promiscuous.

Now, where to find a hub, and where to find a NIC that can be set to
promiscuous, I don't know. Maybe others can chime in. Particularly on
the latter.

A classic free packet sniffer is ethereal. So, you can view everything
with that.
(one with a nicer GUI, but payware, is called Iris).
With ethereal you prob want to change the view so it shows the time,
and you use filters so it shows what you want it to show. Things like
initiating a connection have unique SYN and ACK bits, different to the
other packets during the tcp connection. so you can filter checking
those, and just get the initiating ones.

that netlimiter looked like it coudl have been interesting.. But the
free version doesn't do bandwidth throttling. So nothing new there.

 

[DGD]

i've never really done it, but in theory..

You get a network hub - instead of a network switch

and you set your NIC(in the monitoring computer) to promiscuous.

Now, where to find a hub, and where to find a NIC that can be set to
promiscuous, I don't know.  Maybe others can chime in. Particularly on
the latter.

A classic free packet sniffer is ethereal. So, you can view everything
with that.
(one with a nicer GUI, but payware, is called Iris).
With ethereal you prob want to change the view so it shows the time,
and you use filters so it shows what you want it to show.  Things like
initiating a connection have unique SYN and ACK bits, different to the
other packets during the tcp connection. so you can filter checking
those, and just get the initiating ones.

that netlimiter looked like it coudl have been interesting.. But the
free version doesn't do bandwidth throttling. So nothing new there.

Looks like ethereal has been replaced by "Wireshark". will download
that and see what it can do. Thanks.