VCDQuality Forums - Monitoring Network (internet) activity

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-- Monitoring Network (internet) activity (http://www.vcdhq.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=80181)

Posted by Linnets on 02-14-2008 12:42 PM:

Monitoring Network (internet) activity

I need to monitor and log the internet activity of my staff. We only have a small network (about 15 pc's) and all the net traffic gets routed through our Draytek (Vigor 2600plus) router which acts as our gateway. Our network server (Windows 2000 server) acts as our DNS.

Can anyone point me in the direction of some *SIMPLE* (like me) software that will read and log any external url that is visited by anyone on the network? I really only need http traffic i think. Ideally it would log times and dates of the activity too.

I would have thought this would be something that Draytek would build in, but if they did I can't find the fucker.

Posted by Vampire on 02-14-2008 01:43 PM:

Depending on how much work your server is currently doing, you could always install FreeProxy on it and change the PC's proxy settings to point to your server. It's freeware (as the name suggests) and, amongst other reporting elements, there is a connection log that lists URLs visited.

I've not used it personally but it seems fairly easy to setup. It looks like a quick and simple solution for you unless anyone here knows of any better software.

:EDIT: ..you'd also need to implement a method for stopping people taking the proxy settings off to bypass it. If all that router does is allow Internet access, you could restrict it so that only your server is allowed through the router.

Posted by socks on 02-14-2008 04:29 PM:

Looking at the tech specs for the Vigour 2700 ( I couldnt see 2600) they say the following:

Management Logging/Monitoring via :

* Syslog
* Web (Browser) based interface
* Telnet Interface

Have you investigated the full ability of the router itself?

Posted by Linnets on 02-14-2008 05:18 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by socks
Looking at the tech specs for the Vigour 2700 ( I couldnt see 2600) they say the following:

Management Logging/Monitoring via :

* Syslog
* Web (Browser) based interface
* Telnet Interface

Have you investigated the full ability of the router itself?

Funny enough I was just going to post that there seems to be a syslog via the hardware, however I can't work out how to access it.

Apparently it logs via a port (514) on our servers IP address. I have just opened port 514 for tcp and udp to my IP address but I still don't know how to access these logs. The only thing I can think to do is type the server ip address plus :514 into a browser. But that just returns an error message as follows:

"The webpage cannot be displayed

Most likely cause:
Some content or files on this webpage require a program that you don't have installed."

Anyone care to hazard a guess as to where these logs are being created?

Posted by LOLobo on 02-14-2008 05:46 PM:

hahaha

Let me make an ssh tunnel, than see you try to monitor my traffic! I'm on PC #13 btw

Posted by Vampire on 02-14-2008 06:55 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Linnets
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to where these logs are being created?

Syslog will be events about the router itself (e.g. interface state change) and wouldn't log details of the traffic passing through it. As you're sending it to your server, your server must have the syslog port open on it which means you're running a syslog daemon of some sort - it'll tell you in there where the logs are being captured.

:EDIT: ...I'm assuming you have a syslog daemon or something running... if you don't, the messages will simply be blackholing.

Posted by Linnets on 02-21-2008 05:04 PM:

Its all beyond me. I just fuckin blocked any page or url that includes the words "facebook", "myspace" or "bebo".

Maybe they'll get on with some fuckin work now. Freeloading Wankers.

Posted by Robert Jones on 02-21-2008 05:56 PM:

try "Network Magic" it's pretty simple and a good little app. sounds like just the thing you need.

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