monitor network usage?

[dbarton]

I'm looking for a freeware program that will look at each machine on my home network and tell me how much bandwidth each is using right then.

We often have multiple machines online, and I'd like to see who the hog is.

[AndyM]

there was a recent thread that might cover this:
    
https://www.donation....msg170355#msg170355

[joiwind]

dbarton - if you want the complete works then check out Paessler's Traffic Grapher : PRTG Traffic Grapher

[MrCrispy]

I use NetWorx - http://www.softperfe...om/products/networx/

It has these features that are critical to me -

1. it ignores LAN traffic (without having to specify ip ranges or rules)
2. it has a way to talk with other instances of itself. So my pc and laptop both show the total usage
3. it has warnings when you get near a limit you set
4. very nice history and stats (down to the hourly level)

The other nice way to do this is to run a bandwidth meter on a router.

[dbarton]

I tried PRTG Traffic Grapher, and it looks for machines that are running SMNP, but it finds none.
I'm not really familiar with SNMP, so maybe my XP home network machines don't have what I need to use this?

This is just a small home network with a few machines on it, and would be nice to see what each person in the house uses.

[IainB]

+1 for Networx.
This post is elsewhere in DC Forum:

Thought this feedback might come in useful.
I have been using NetWorx for about a year now. Originally, my laptop had been the sole user of the connection (via a WiFi Access Point), but now we have two laptops that share the connection via the same WiFi Access Point.

The other week, we blew our bandwidth cap. This was no surprise, as our ISP had automatically emailed us to warn that we were approaching 80% utilisation of the capped limit. However, I had rather wished that I could use NetWorx to monitor all bandwidth utilisation for that line, but I had assumed that it could not do that except across a LAN.

Today I was playing around with the NetWorx settings on the two PCS we have that use the line, and - somewhat hopefully -  I tried ticking the box in the "Advanced" tab that said "Synchronise usage data with other NetWorx instances on the network".

To my pleasant surprise, both laptops' instances of NetWorx almost immediately picked up each others' data, and on both laptops you could see the bandwidth consumption by user within laptop, or as an aggregate total for all users.

NetWorx is currently up to v5.1.1 as of 2010/04/14. This usage data synchronisation, together with its nifty reports and bar charts, make NetWorx a very good piece of free software.

[dbarton]

Much appreciated.
Networx seems to do it without needing SNMP, but I'm still be curious what that is..