We have a home network with 3 PCs plus mobiles/laptop connecting to the internet through a wireless AP and an ADSL router. Is there an easy way of monitoring the data usage for individual devices *without* having to install software on each device? I only want to count traffic between local devices and the internet, not worried about transfers/streaming media between devices. Currently using DHCP but could change to reserved IPs if necessary.

Your router might do it?

Yeh check the router. I just did some digging on my Homehub 2 and in advanced settings > broadband I found:

Connection information
Connection time 17 days, 17:01:08
Data transmitted/received (MB) 455.11 / 9132.0

So if I rebooted it each month it would give me a running total. Only problem would be if it got turned off…but you’d know as the connection time would be wrong.

Finally, some ISP’s will tell you how much data you’ve used.

Yes, I can get the total data usage, but I’d like to know how much is being used by each PC (so I know who to nag if we go over quota). I’ve had a look in the router config (it’s a Netgear DG834) but can’t see anything that looks helpful.

I’m sure I have one that does quotas for individual machines…

why on earth would you *want* to do that? Why not build a model old warship out of matchsticks to your own design?

Unless your router supports this sort of thing (or you buy one that does), I’d suggest monitoring s/w on each PC for your ‘individual’ stats and whatever web interface your ISP provides for usage across the connection. If you’re on a limited connection, they should be providing this functionality (and if you’re not, who cares).

He’s trying to spot the pron addict without them knowing…

He’s trying to spot the pron addict without them knowing…

Well not quite, but that’s the functionality. Just want to make sure the bill is split fairly.

Split the bill equally between each of the people. Unless you’re being ripped off massively what’ll it be? 3 quid each a month?

Any solution you put in place to provide the functionality you’re after is going to cost more than that in effort alone.

But if you must, I’d say the best solution is a desktop acting as a proxy, stick ubuntu and squid on there, get some decent reporting tools on the squid logs, force user auth against the proxy, force users to connect to the proxy on their way out (easier said than done with a home network, basically you have to block all outbound traffic from all devices other than the proxy), and then trust the reports you get out of it.

Does it sound less hassle than splitting the bill equally yet?

I suppose an alternative would be to create an opendns account for each user, give them the account details and then compare each account usage at the end of the month. That’s all free but really, it’s going to be a lot of effort.

But it really sounds to me like someone is hogging all the bandwidth and you want to find out who it is. Both the solutions above will do that for you, but a sensible sit down with everyone together will be a much better option.