IP/MAC address monitoring

Evening all

Im looking for software to help me monitor who is using all the bandwidth on our home wifi network. My wife and I know its our daughter but she is finding it difficult to believe.

Any advice most welcome

Router logs?

reply to post by macpdm


Contact your ISP?

You'll need to do some studying to do what you're trying to do.

You'll need to learn how to use and navigate your routers web interface(typically located at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1 or 192.168.1.254), default login is usually along user: admin pass: admin, or admin pass blank etc.

From there, you'll want to find the MAC address for your daughters computer etc.

If you want to only give her, say, 25% of the bandwidth available, you'll usually need to replace your routers firmware with something like DD-WRT, and enable QoS(quality of service) and limit her bandwidth.

Also, use speedtest.net to check your bandwidth.

Originally posted by VoidHawk
Router logs?

Most routers won't show bandwidth information. I had to install a totally different firmware onto my router to monitor bandwidth usage.

Originally posted by denybedoomed
Contact your ISP?

That will only tell the total bandwidth his IP has used. It won't tell the individual bandwidth usage for each computer which is what he wants.

Originally posted by macpdm
Im looking for software to help me monitor who is using all the bandwidth on our home wifi network.

There are tons of free bandwidth monitoring apps, many of them run hidden in the background. All you have to do is search for "bandwidth monitoring program" and you'll get tons of results. But you'll have to install it on each computer on your network so that it will monitor each computer's bandwidth.

There's nothing you can do at the router level to monitor bandwidth from each computer separately, only totally on the entire network.

I would also suggest looking at the router logs and make sure there are no computers connected or have connected that don't belong and are not coming from your network.

For instance, if your WiFi is not very well secured, someone could be connecting and downloading anything, which is quite scary these days.

reply to post by macpdm


I would suggest the easiest route.

Use MAC address filtering, block your daughters MAC address from accessing the network for a few days, and then compare the data usage to the same time last month.

All standard internet routers have the feature now a days.

If she is using tons of bandwidth, the proof will be there.

~Tenth

Thanks all

Im pretty certain my network is secure and I have noted down all of the MAC addresses but my kid uses an ipod.

reply to post by macpdm


It's probably the Ipod, which does have it's own MAC ID, which you can find through the following settings map:

Settings
General
About
Mac ID:XXXXX


It's probably video streaming that's doing it. Either HD Youtube or Netflix. Could also be streaming music services like Groove Shark for example, but those don't use nearly as much data as video.

~Tenth

Of course there are other things that could be causing high bandwidth ,a neighbor might have hacked your wifi and is piggybacking your internet connection for free. The chances of this happening v your daughter using up the bandwidth are slim but it is a possibility.

A lot of people prefer to use third party firmware as it's more robust. Typically most of those store bought consumer grade routers will just have a table showing DHCP leases and doesn't show the entire table. A hacker that compromised your network router could have a Workgroup name HACKER and assign himself a static IP outside the range of your DHCP. Some command line tools can help pinpoint others on the network like net view and arp -a ect. cmd.exe may need to run in admin mode before those commands can be run.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by macpdm

 

It's probably the Ipod, which does have it's own MAC ID, which you can find through the following settings map:

Settings
General
About
Mac ID:XXXXX


It's probably video streaming that's doing it. Either HD Youtube or Netflix. Could also be streaming music services like Groove Shark for example, but those don't use nearly as much data as video.

~Tenth

Sorry to everyone for the late reply and I am grateful for the time taken to post. I believe you are right Tenth we know its our daughter but cant prove it. To be fair she genuinely isnt aware she is using so much bandwidth and gives me those big baby blue eyes & says "honest dad I didnt use all that"

We live in the country with virtually no neighbours so pretty certain nobody is stealing our bandwidth.This being another reason for suspecting our daughter.