lan monitor tool

[edwinhunt]

hi all,

i'm looking for a simple basic tool that will monitor my lan traffic and tell me which pc is the top talker and generating the most traffic. i don't need to find out what protocol, etc that is running on this pc. again, i just want to find what pc it is? any thoughts, ideas, suggestions is appreciated.

thanks
ed

 

[SpaceMaker]

You could use a sniffer.

Try Snort

http://www.snort.org/

or Analyzer

http://analyzer.polito.it/

or Ethereal

http://www.ethereal.com/

Setup a filter to accept all messages then inspect the capture log to see who is sending the most times and/or the most bytes.

Note: this will only work if you can see all of the LAN traffic. If you are connected via a switch, you will only see traffic directed to you. Some switches have a sniffer port but this is becoming less common.

I have used all three products (they are free). They are quite similar so it really doesn't matter which you choose. There is a potentially steep learining curve if you are new to this area.

There are other programs out there but most want to ping the monitoing point which doesn't sound like it will help you much. Learn to use one of the sniffers -- it's well worth the effort.

 

[pansophic]

You can also look into MRTG to get statistics from your router(s). Of course it won't do you much good on the internal network unless you enable SNMP on all of the hosts. I really don't recommend turning on SNMP on everything.


pansophic