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I am living with 5 other people and most of our network is consumed in 20 days so we have to spend almost 10-11 days without Internet. I just wish to know what are the ways to monitor the internet usage of a particular laptop or a cellphone to know which of these devices are responsible to use most of the internet.
The router is cisco(DPC)
Dhrumit Patel
Posted 2014-07-11T01:56:46.790
Reputation: 309
20
This is a common problem without a simple solution, assuming you're trying to monitor every device from a central location. You can't monitor these kinds of stats from a single PC, you need to get in the middle of everything, your router.
I've been in similar situations with bandwidth-hogging roommates, I was able to flash my router with the Toastman Tomato Firmware which will allow you to monitor and restrict bandwidth usage on a per-device basis (note: the standard tomato firmware won't break down bandwidth usage by individual device.)
If you want to go this direction, the link provided explains the process from flashing the firmware to setting up monitoring.
It is a rather involved process, and you need to make sure your router is compatible.
Chris A
Posted 2014-07-11T01:56:46.790
Reputation: 535
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A little bit easier approach than flashing your router might be to use an old PC/Laptop or similar as an Proxy. It isn't so hard to set up some software and route all your traffic through that PC as a standard-gateway, then it should be easy to record detailed stats!
Falco
Posted 2014-07-11T01:56:46.790
Reputation: 468
I hear OpenBSD makes for a great router (and firewall). – DBedrenko – 2014-07-11T10:57:28.200
3Raspberry Pi for this :) – Cruncher – 2014-07-11T18:53:23.133
Assuming your using wifi what is the make/model of the router? – cybernard – 2014-07-11T02:04:12.957
Cellphones usually have built-in record keeping. – cybernard – 2014-07-11T02:07:25.517
4If you could load an open firmware such as ww-rt or tomato on your wifi router, it would be relatively easy. – cybernard – 2014-07-11T02:10:46.220
The easiest solution would be to Just upgrade your broadband package :-) – rfsk2010 – 2014-07-11T13:12:59.357
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This is closely related to http://superuser.com/questions/533361/office-internet-monitoring-usage
– Brian – 2014-07-11T15:37:11.823@cybernard: Is ww-rt a thing? Googling it turns up a lot of dd-wrt hits and nothing with the text "ww-rt" on the page. – user2357112 supports Monica – 2014-07-12T08:36:53.523
@user2357112 Yes, I meant. ddww-rt and tomato are alternative firmware that allow your router to run linux. Then you have most of the linux tools for monitoring,firewalling, and etc instead of the few options provided by the manufacturer. – cybernard – 2014-07-12T15:43:11.230