Good afternoon,

I know this question has been asked over and over but every setup is a little different so i figured i'd get some opinions.

I'm looking to setup a *nix box to monitor all the outgoing/incoming traffic used by each box on our network. I would like to be able to get real time stats as well as a history of the usage. A list of visited websites and the like would be nice too or how much bandwidth was used from that site (myspace, internet radio), but i'm mostly concerned with seeing what users are eatting the speed, extra data is just a plus.

I would also like to be able to shape the bandwidth (if needed). Possibly setup a group of users to be limited or maybe throttle a connection if it starts eating bandwidth for longer then a given time. I'm not to concerned at the moment with how the throttling is done so long as i have some type of option to do so.

Some info on our current network. I have 2 locations i'd like to do this too. Each location has a user base of about 50-75 people at each site. Both sites have a Win2k3 sbs domain, and a as400, which do serve content to the web. We also have a VPN setup between houses for our IP phones, but that isn't really relevant to the problem

My idea is to stick the *nix box between the router and the switches so all traffic flows through the *nix box so it can be captured. Unless you would suggest getting a small hub and branching that off the network, but i figured routing all traffic through the box would give the best results.

Open source is a must, i currently have no budget aside from the machine i'm setting this up on. I don't have an issue using multiple programs to meet my needs, but of course something integrated is always a plus.

Your suggestions and knowledge in this area would be wonderful, thank you in advance guys!

Void4ever

Hey Void4Ever...You could try the Linux Bandwidth Arbitrator. It's open source and does some of what you need. If you combine it with NTOP & it will do most everything for you.

NTOP Is an open source reporting tool.


The LBA can identify some websites and do some user throttling. You may want to consider your time as a cost in setting this up (you will be fiddling with open source and bugs and no support for a while if you grow your own).

In other words if you get this working anywhere near what you want you
will have spent about 200 hour of your own time minimum.

If you could come up with some budget you could try the commercial version of the LBA that has a lot of enhancements. A product like Netequalizer will do everything on its own and you won't have to spend any time messing with it all.

Let me know what you end up doing.

I'm sorry for the long period of time before a reply. I got married on 11/30 and then off on my honeymoon.

Techwannabe : thank you for the heads up, i will look at LBA and see if it will do what i need, and i'll let you know.

No other suggestions from others at all?

Void4ever

I second the recommendation of Netequalizer. Techwannabe summed it up. if you've got the resources, It's a pretty quick and easy fix. With that said, it's not terribly expensive in relation to some other boxes.