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Need proxy software to capture outbound http requests

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wysocki:
I've searched a bit and can't find anything like this. I'm looking for a way to capture all the internet http url's that are requested from within my network. I'd like to capture and log the date,time,IP,and URL. This would seem to be a pretty easy thing to code (but it's beyond my skills) and I can't find anything that's simple to use that can do this. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

Renegade:
Are you looking for a packet sniffer like Wireshark? It records everything.

40hz:
+1 w/Renegade.

There are some easier to use products than Wireshark. But many are just Wireshark tricked out with a fancy UI and a 'pretty' report module. They all basically do the same thing. And most aren't free. So if it's not for business use, it can be hard to justify spending the money on them.

FWIW Wireshark's not that hard to set up or understand if you're willing to do a little reading and spend some time with it.

Just out of curiosity, what nefarious web use are you looking to check up on.  ;D

wysocki:
Thanks guys! I checked out Wireshark - holy mackeral! A bit more than I can handle unfortunately. Basically where this started was I'm looking for a way to see the browsing history in Firefox 3.x from a few computers on the network. They're being manned by volunteers working on a drug abuse hotline and so, even though it's technically a business, there's no money involved, or even available! Hence I'm looking for something cheap(free). Also, I don't want to actually put filtering in place because these guys occasionally really have to go to some "questionable" websites to do their job. I'd just like to be able to get an idea of what kind of resources are being used - or maybe misused - via the Internet so that I can weigh it against the quality of work achieved. I'd be happy seeing just the history logs on the computers, but some of the guys decide to change the history settings and wipe it out. Paranoia runs deep.

I've searched in vain for a way to lock the history down in Firefox, so I thought I'd somehow point the browser to a "proxy" that would log the url then pass it thru to the router undetected. I also thought about some way to monitor the database that stores the history and copy all new entries off to another table for archiving, but I'm stuck there too.

Any other ideas on how to do this out there?

skwire:
First of all, this isn't quite as easy as it would seem.  Some questions:

1) Are you on a switched network?  Or are you using an old style hub to interconnect your computers?  If you're on a switched network, you're not going to be able to see other computer's network traffic from your PC...leading to the next question...

2) What kind of device are you using as a network gateway?  That's going to be your best bet at sniffing your network's internet traffic (since all of it has to go through this device).

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