RE: SOHO-class user bandwidth monitoring

You know that for some people, they'd rather spend 5 hours configuring PCs
than buying a $50 switch. =)

A squid server would only catch web usage, right?  They're looking to track
all usage.  Besides, a squid server would likely be above their skill level.

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: jp [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 9:53 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: SOHO-class user bandwidth monitoring

You can get a used procurve switch (with snmp & web interface) for $50 
on up on Ebay. Something like a 2524 switch or 4000m switch. They are 
built like tanks and much easier than polling each computer's snmp.

If they are talking Internet usage, I'd suggest forcing everything 
through a squid server and having a web based report compiled every day 
with cron for the user. This setup probably costs the same as a couple 
weeks of non-productivity of their staff surfing youtube and facebook.

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 09:31:01PM -0500, Frank Bulk wrote:
> The customer is actually looking for per (internal-)user stats.  They
don't
> have a manageable switch or router at this time, which is why the one
> suggestion, of turning on SNMP on each workstation, is a good idea.
> 
> Frank
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On
> Behalf Of Brian Johnson
> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:42 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: SOHO-class user bandwidth monitoring
> 
> Are you looking for traffic details (What ports are in use), or simply
> quantity of traffic?
> 
> For quantity of traffic, if they have a SNMP capable router, I would
> just use Cacti. It's easy to set-up and simple to use.
> 
> For traffic details, I would use netflow along with some sort of
> collection and analysis tool. I've heard good things about Xangati, but
> there are open-source netflow collectors and analyzers out there.
> 
> - Brian
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email protected] [mailto:list-bounces@inet-
> > access.net] On Behalf Of Frank Bulk - iName.com
> > Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 12:16 PM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: SOHO-class user bandwidth monitoring
> > 
> > I had a small-biz customer ask me today for a router or opensource
> > software
> > that can help him track employee bandwidth usage.  Besides setting up
> > Wireshark for the times congestion happens, the only thing I could
> come
> > up
> > with was a Cisco ASA 5505 and use the free versions of netflow
> > monitoring
> > tools from Solarwinds or Plixer.
> > 
> > Any other ideas out there?  It would need to be dead-simple for the
> > customer
> > to configure and set up.
> > 
> > Frank
> > 
> > --
> > Eat sushi frequently. - Avi
> > [email protected] is the human contact address.
> > [email protected] is the list posting address.
> > See below URL for subscribe/unsubscribe and list options:
> > http://inet-access.net/mailman/listinfo/list
> -- 
> Eat sushi frequently. - Avi
> [email protected] is the human contact address.
> [email protected] is the list posting address.
> See below URL for subscribe/unsubscribe and list options:
> http://inet-access.net/mailman/listinfo/list
> 
> -- 
> Eat sushi frequently. - Avi
> [email protected] is the human contact address.
> [email protected] is the list posting address.
> See below URL for subscribe/unsubscribe and list options:
> http://inet-access.net/mailman/listinfo/list

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-- 
Eat sushi frequently. - Avi
[email protected] is the human contact address.
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