Good network traffic monitoring

[thirdeye]

I need a good traffic monitoring program that will allow me to pin point what type of traffic is running on my network, what node it is coming from and where it is going to/coming from. Any suggestions.

Something that is relatively easy use is a plus and something that is not outrageously expensive as it is for a small (~180 users) non-profit organization.

 

[BriGy86]

this may be of some interest

 

[nweaver]

couple of points..
1. It's hard to really track local traffic on a switched network. You need to decide what's important to track. (i.e. backbone to servers, internet usage, etc)
2. Setup a passive tap/use a hub to implement a box that can capture traffic

Aps I have used for network stuff are MRTG (Managed net device uses smtp, Bandwidth per interface). NTOP, deeper inspection, very nice. Resource intensive (dedicate a box) and free for Linux (pretty recent version in Debian Testing). Ethereal (raw packet capture, you would have to build a parsing routine, or manually look for what you want)

 

[MulLa]

Port mirroring feature on your managed switch can also come in handy in this situation.

 

[gordita]

what a coincidence!
I just listed Network bandwidth monitoring as my project for the next couple of weeks.
basically, I have about 10 different router interfaces (couple of interfaces on each router, not 10 of them on a single router) to monitor.
MRTG should be ok?
I don't mind paying for a better, customisable s/w
something that is always on, web-based and will give me a history for couple of YEARS.
any other suggestions apart from NTOP and MRTG?
thanks

 

[nweaver]

MRTG fits that description out of the box, except it's history is only one year (although it may be easy to change). Web based, check, history, check, easy, check. 🙂

 

[gordita]

actually, I just found this program called the PRTG Traffic grapher at
Here
looks promising for those of you who want to run it on a win32 box instead of unix/linux
i'm gonna give a shot at their trial s/w

 

[petey117]

mrtg blows prtg away. i have used both, and find prtg flaky and unreliable. although mrtg has a much higher learning curve

 

[spidey07]

for MRTG on steroids check out "statseeker"

the end all be all SNMP poller.

 

[gordita]

hey spidey, that prog looks promising.
any idea as to how mucho it costs?
the company is based out in australia with no channel partner in the US.
I'm gonna try out PRTG traffic for a month and then maybe give statseeker a shot....

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: gordita
hey spidey, that prog looks promising.
any idea as to how mucho it costs?
the company is based out in australia with no channel partner in the US.
I'm gonna try out PRTG traffic for a month and then maybe give statseeker a shot....

MRTG can be run on windows, it's pretty much just fancy perl....

 

[thirdeye]

Wow took a while but got quite a few replies now 🙂

I've been playing with a program called OptUtils. While it doesn't do exactly what I want it's a pretty good kit of tools.

 

[Tazanator]

Originally posted by: gordita
actually, I just found this program called the PRTG Traffic grapher at
Here
looks promising for those of you who want to run it on a win32 box instead of unix/linux
i'm gonna give a shot at their trial s/w

umm why MRTG runs on win 2K here no problem...