Any free network or internet monitoring software available?

[tchinhe]

I am looking for some kind of software that will allow me to see what the users are doing. I have Webboy and VNC but I would like something what will let me see and monitor the activity(surfing and chatting) WebBoy loads each and every link on the page so sometimes it is really hard to track. The reports is also not flexible enough. I tried Netvisor but it cost too much on the license. I could not even get the trial version to work right for me. Uninstall is also tough on the workstations.

 

[JackMDS]

Ignore.

 

[Soybomb]

Are you sure you want to set yourself up as having a history of monitoring their activity? If nothing else there are some ethical and moral questions that can come up from that. I'd start by looking at a good web proxy server if you wanted to though that could generate the reports you need.

 

[tchinhe]

thanks for the input but I am monitoring a company network. when you get ppl just downloading music and listening to online music it pretty much kills the bandwidth. Ppl are suppose to be at work but not surfing. not to mention going to personal websites and email. Where is the work ethics in that. It is a company policy that computers and internet are for business use only.

 

[RhythmAddict]

Why don't you just block the respective ports/sites/IP's? Use ISA server? etc...
Also, many decent firewalls allow you to content filter, you could implement that as well.

 

[Soybomb]

Originally posted by: tchinhe
thanks for the input but I am monitoring a company network. when you get ppl just downloading music and listening to online music it pretty much kills the bandwidth. Ppl are suppose to be at work but not surfing. not to mention going to personal websites and email. Where is the work ethics in that. It is a company policy that computers and internet are for business use only.

My method would be to block the services you don't want and maybe only white list some web pages and block others then, or block their internet access at all times except lunch or something. To me the moral problem comes in with scenarios like for instance you're sitting there reading instant messages (and I can't imagine what would be more boring, but lets say you are) and say find out that fred in accounting is cheating on his wife who works in markteing with bob, the district manager. Do you have an obligation to let his wife know? How about when they get a divorce, they know the company has a history of monitoring those things so now you get subpoenaed to produce those records to be used during the divorce hearing. Like I said too much work and obligation can come with monitor, I favor blocking like the other guy.

 

[stephbu]

A transparent proxy with blocking as appropriate and minimal logging would probably do the do. I use ISA Server at home and at work for this.

Detailed logging is a potential can of worms legally and morally. Its also open to gross mis-interpretation e.g. someone opens a junk mail link that redirects to a goatse appreciation page.

 

[tchinhe]

Very nicely explained. I agree that monitoring can have issues than not. Blocking messenger and online radio port might be easy but I still need to monitor if someone gets on certain sites. Thanks for all the suggestions. I can definitely block the ports on the firewall.

 

[mechBgon]

Also, have you considered taking control of what software is installed on the PCs?

Where I work, we set the PCs up and make the employees Restricted Users, and that's that. No IM programs, spyware, games, screensavers, file-sharing programs, pr0n downloaders... just Win2000SP4, IE6SP1, Media Player 6.4, Office2000, Acrobat Reader, FilZip, McAfee VirusScan Enterprise, and McAfee ePO Agent. Clean, stable, and low on bandwidth usage. If the employees really need something out of the ordinary, such as an alternate media player for viewing a training CD, that's understandable and we make the exceptions where needed.

There are a few gotchas to having Restricted Users, but it pays in the long run IMO. Consider starting down that road with the systems whenever they're re-imaged, or when new ones are added to the fleet, assuming you have Win2000 or WinXP Pro and not a bunch of Win98/ME systems Expect to be labelled the "Fun Police" now and then

 

[onelin]

IE6SP1? you make your users use that? man, that's rough *g*

actually I fully agree with setups like that in the workplace.