How to monitor Internet Traffic on a Network?

[ppaik]

Can this be done on windows or only from a 3rd party software? Basically want to track what people are doing on the Internet.

Thanks

 

[Atheus]

Packet sniffers.

You need to intercept everything at the router, or run them on every machine.

 

[petey117]

or port mirror on the switch, to avoid installing it on every machine.
a little info about your infrastructure, and specific goals would be helpful
a packet sniffer could be like trying to decode the matrix if you have 200 users, or like swatting a gnat with a tank if you have 1 user

 

[ppaik]

Specifically someone asked me to monitor 3 workstations (on the net) at work. I found some 3rd party software on the net such as track4win and cyberspy, however i was wondering if there was something on windows i could do. I looked into a packet sniffer (probenet) however I had no luck with it and track4win and cyberspy gets deleted from the workstations because the antivirus looks at it as spyware.

The office workstations are connected to a cisco 2950 switch and the switch is connected to a pix firewall.

 

[RebateMonger]

A standard way of doing this is to run a firewall or proxy server on your Server that monitors Internet requrest. Microsoft's ISA Server 2004, for instance, used on Windows Servers, can easily track every user's requests to the Internet, as well as about anything else you want to monitor. You can also deny access to web sites and control the "surfing" hours allowed.

Windows XP itself has no built-in monitoring ability, other than the I.E. "History Cache", which is easily erased unless you limit user rights. And gathering the Cache data from multiple computers would be a bit of work.

There are 3rd-party control and monitoring programs, including key loggers, that can be installed on individual computers, too.

 

[Tazanator]

well if you want just traffic stats mrtg will show you how much data they are using. If you want to see what they are doing a squid Proxy works very well.

 

[petey117]

i agree, proxy is the way to go for this
or, you can limit where they are going using the built in IE function of content filtering