How to monitor bandwidth use of each device on wifi network

Question

I have in my home a standard Comcast cable internet connection. I have it going from the wall to a cable modem, and from the modem to a late-series Linksys router, which provides wired and wireless networking. The vast majority of the users are wireless connections. For day-to-day tasks, this connection is fully sufficient for all my needs.

However, on regular occassions, we have social gatherings that involve many people bringing laptops and other PCs and using the network and internet simultaneously, frequently for gaming. I have no administrative oversight over these machines; they have been known to be riddled with spyware and/or bloatware or be running torrents, legal or otherwise. The only reason I care is that on a regular basis, one of the machines will flatline my internet bandwith, and consume it all in order to upload/download/spam people/whatever. When this happens, the latency of the connections for gaming and the like becomes unacceptable, and everyone suffers.

My question is: Is there a system I can set up whereby I can easily monitor the various systems connected to my wireless connection, see how much bandwith each one is using, and for what ends? That way, at a glance, I can spot the offending machine and kick it from the connection, without having to go from machine to machine, checking each one's "bandwith used" properties manually, and dealing with the owner's indignant protests all the while. I understand this will likely involve 3rd-party software and/or hardware; my issue is I don't even know where to begin.

Solution 1

Depending on the model of your Linksys router, check out DD-WRT and look into installing it. The latest versions have options to limit the number of connections, as well as view the connections of every computer on the network. From there you just find the computer with the most connections (this will most likely be the offender, especially if they have torrent software running in the background) and kick 'em.

In addition, DD-WRT it has an easy setup for content filtering / port filtering for a group of machines. Portforward.com has a great list of the ports that almost every game uses, so you could essentially limit the users to port 80 (web) and whatever games you are running.

Good luck!

Solution 2

Gargoyle does the trick.

Gargoyle is the only solution on the market that lets you monitor and set monthly bandwidth caps for every connected computer. Effortlessly identify the users abusing their network priviledges and lock them down.

Solution 3

Kind of late to the discussion but if you have one of *WRT firmware variants running on your router, my (free) usage monitoring add-on called YAMon (short for Yet Another Monitor) shows what devices are connected to your network and how much data they are consuming, when.

The data is aggregated by hour, day and month (within your ISP billing interval) and can be rolled-up into arbitrary groups (e.g., by family member or by any other logical grouping of devices). Reports are presented in nicely formatted HTML tables and charts.

YAMon can be downloaded from http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=259806

Al

(*WRT--> DD-WRT, OpenWRT, AsusWRT)

Comments

[Admin]

possible duplicate of How can I monitor internet usage in my network?

[GWLlosa]

I'll look into DD-WRT... does it do bandwith or just connection count? Also, that website is staggeringly comprehensive, good link!

[Steiv]

It will do a total bandwidth monitor, but for individual clients it just shows connections (I'm on v24 SP1, btw). They've got a good router database to show what is supported and what isn't, but if yours isn't on the list I recommend buying a WRT54GL from Newegg. It'll set you back ~$60 and is 100% functional with DD-WRT.

[snowskater]

+1 DD-WRT allows bandwidth shaping, if your router supports DD-WRT, go for it. if not, you'll have to upgrade to a business class router, or a router that does support DD-WRT. other than that, you can turn a spare box with a wlan controllor that supports AP mode into a 'hot-spot' controlled by Vyatta Community Edition.

[looooongname]

Does it actually show you current bandwidth consumption per device? I couldn't seem to find that in the screenshots.