Want to trace pc/router traffic

[pdanev]

My internet is going nutts all the time, and is slow as hell lately.

Setup:

Modem -> 4 port Router ->
-> 3 people on router
-> hub/switch - > 2 people on that

Either:
1, Someone is using some p2p and uploads a lot, killing the speed
2, Someone has a virus that's trying to spread itself killing the connection
3, Something else that's I'm unaware of is killing the connection

So I want to somehow see the traffic that each PC has, but I don't have such statistics in the router settings. (Problem is deifinitely not with my computer, didn't download/upload anything lately, monitoring traffic, all is fine, no viruses or adware etc)

The router is a simple Sweex one.

Any ideas or thoughts how to figure out the traffic that each compter on our homenetwork has? I wanna know who's ass to kick.

[hokiethang]

well, there's one way I would solve it, and that's route everything through a computer, and then watch the traffic coming in to the router and tell the computer to not accept anything from that MAC address anymore. That's a bit too much of an advanced solution though even though it's the easiest once in place.

As for determining traffic, if the network uses hubs instead of switches, you can download some software called ethereal. It basically sniffs the network to find out what packets are crossing it. With Ethereal you can find out where data is flowing (across a hub network) because each machine receives copies of each packet. With a switch, you may get some of the packets, but it will only really be effective if there is a broadcast problem, instead of someone communicating with the internet directly. It would be optimal to run ethereal from the router, but that's not possible (unless its a linksys WRT54G with a linux OS installed). The router you linked to doesn't look advanced enough to support SNMP, which would also make determining traffic much easier (and give you pretty graphs like this.), yet with greater complexity.

The other reallly simple option is to unplug everyone, plug one person in, test, wait 15 minutes, test again, plug next person in, test.... I say wait 15 minutes to make sure that its not some time delayed connection, like may occur with P2P or Worm traffic.

[pdanev]

Thanks hokie, will try out ethereal.