HI! i'm wondering if any of you know of any software out there that i can use to monitor my network. I have a rather large network (for a home network) and i'd like to monitor whos on it, and their use of the internet connection if possible. We all use win XP home (except for one computer with XP pro who occasionally connects) basically we have a combination wired, and wireless netowrk with 5 computers normally on. I'm currently using a workgroup setup configuration but willing to change. I breifly considered doing a novell type of thing where you login, but i havn't thought about making a computer be a server (though i do believe i have an extra one laying around somewhere i can convert hmmm. well thank you :)

Ethereal is an open source, free, and very powerful network traffic analyzer. Something to consider though... if you use a switch (not a hub) to connect the computers, you won't see any traffic besides that generated by the machine Ethereal is running on. This is due to the switching nature of a switch. A better way to see what the computers are accessing on the Internet would be to setup a proxy server like Squid. This is a little more difficult, and you will have to configure all the machines to run through the proxy, but if you REALLY want to know what traffic is leaving & entering the network a proxy is the way to go.

I am using a switch :(

Dr. Nick, Thanks for that - I thought I was not reading the Ethereal logs properly! Steve, I use Ipcop, a Linux proxy/firewall on a old box both at home and at work. I know very little Linux, but with some help from the nice folks at https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ipcop-user setting it up was not a painful experience. Squid is built in, which gives you detailed logs. In addition you get Dynamic DNS support and some other features. There is nothing to configuring the clients - you just point them to the proxy server box instead of directly to your router or whatever. Peter (Alert me if you want a reply)