Counting users accessing WiFi

[knightc2]

I have been hunting high and low for what I would think is a simple solution for counting wireless users. I want to be able to count the unique number of users that are utilizing my public wireless network each day for statistics. At this point I don't care about bandwidth, sites visited, etc. just simply how many unique users are accessing the wifi network each day.

I have tried Tomato and DD-WRT builds and cannot find a simple way to do this. Currently I am using a D-Link DIR-655 and I have it setup to email me logs each night. This kind of works but is very hard to sift out data as it includes tons of IP lease info and other entries that I don't need to see. I would like to be able to use MAC address to count users since it is the only truly unique identifier on each mobile device.

I have used captive portals in the past but they often do not work with simple mobile devices (Kindles, Nooks, etc.) that do not have robust web browsers. What I want is a simple way to count unique users preferably using DD-WRT on the router itself without having to run a proxy box. Preferably these logs would be emailed to me each night or could be dumped on a server if needed. I have the aforementioned DIR-655 and a Linksys WRT54GL at my disposal.

Any ideas? This can't be that hard.

 

[gsaldivar]

Download Network Scanner and set it to the subnet of your router's DHCP server. For example, if your router is assigning addresses of 192.168.1.100-255, then set that as your search range and scan. This will show you actual connected computers on your network, which as you've discovered is not the same thing as DHCP leases:

I don't know of any software to automate and email this search on a nightly basis, but if you find one kindly post back and let us know.

Thanks.

 

[tcsenter]

You could filter (uncheck) all views for your logs except "warning" level. This will log when each new client/computer actually receives an IP address, rather than just associated or connected. e.g. "A network computer (MAC ID displayed here) was assigned the IP address of 192.168.xxx.xxx". You won't get any other types of activity, though. Looking through the log file for my DIR-655, the aforementioned is the only type of activity that is receiving the 'warning' view level.

 

[JackMDS]

Did not try it myself, but this might help (look at the advanced option too).

http://majorgeeks.com/Wireless_Network_Watcher_d7068.html

 

[mammador]

Fing.

 

[knightc2]

Download Network Scanner and set it to the subnet of your router's DHCP server. For example, if your router is assigning addresses of 192.168.1.100-255, then set that as your search range and scan. This will show you actual connected computers on your network, which as you've discovered is not the same thing as DHCP leases:

I don't know of any software to automate and email this search on a nightly basis, but if you find one kindly post back and let us know.

Thanks.

Thanks for the link. I do have network scanner and it is a pretty good program. The problem is I would have to monitor this constantly to use it for my purpose. I need something automated that can send me total number of users each night if possible.

 

[knightc2]

You could filter (uncheck) all views for your logs except "warning" level. This will log when each new client/computer actually receives an IP address, rather than just associated or connected. e.g. "A network computer (MAC ID displayed here) was assigned the IP address of 192.168.xxx.xxx". You won't get any other types of activity, though. Looking through the log file for my DIR-655, the aforementioned is the only type of activity that is receiving the 'warning' view level.

I will try this and see what kind of results I get. Thanks.

 

[007networkpro]

We use MikroTik Gateways. They list all that info for you, without having to do any kind of firmware upgrades.