How can I find out which person is hogging our home network by downloading large file

Frank_Sebem

Hi all

I have a large House that I rent out. It is split up and rented to 6 students. As a gift I supply them with a free Internet Wireless connection through the Sky Router. Everything was OK when I moved out 8 months ago with me, my partner & kids all being able to use the wireless connection on our Lappys at the same time. However, recently a couple of the guys have told me that they suspect that one house mate is constantly downloading films every night. The other lads say this slows their connections. The guy who they suspect is French. He's s great guy but struggles to understand the others. However, he says it isn't him. The lads are convinced he is the one eating up all the Bandwidth. I don't wanna go in accusing etc, so is there any method or free software where I can check the following:

1. Exactly who (Which PC) is online at a specific time.

I presume I need to somehow find all their ip addresses?
If I could find out who was using the wireless at a specific time, and even better.... How much bandwidth they were using I could help the lads out.

Thanks all.

Ps, The French guy is a sound bloke so I don't wanna go in all gung ho without knowing what I'm talking about.

S0litaire

The router should have an option to "LOG" details of the network traffic.

If you have access to the router's admin pages check through them for logging options.
You may also have the ability to control when the Wi-fi is on or allows access to the net via set time's.

My Netgear ADSL router has the option to set times of the day to accept or refuse internet access from specific IP or MAC addresses.

If you can get MAC address of the freanch guys machine you may be able to block it at night and leave it open during the day.

robmar0se

In my router (netgear), I can allocate a static IP address by mac address to each PC, thereby only allocated machines would be able to use the system. This is the first step to understanding/restricting the network. Then of course each user will know they are being controlled. There may be other routers that can do what you want better; cheap, or ISP supplied, routers would perhaps not give you the ability to control (dynamic IP addresses change so one would always know which was which)

Perhaps something like the realtime router monitor, or something similar would give you the info.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Network-Information/Router-Monitor.shtml

You could speak to some specialist broadband retailers to get their suggestions - eg Broadbandbuyer, Transparent communications, Broadbandstuff, Networlingstuff

chemer

I can suggest that you can just log everyone out exept suspect, and have a close look on the router. If wi-fi light will flash rapidly than he is doing it. Actually there coud be just the way those people use web for. If they will try alltogether watch smth on youtube in high definition on every computer bandwith will be full. Try resset the router, that can be a problem too. Hope it helps.

SteveJH200

This is something I should have looked into last August. Had a Chinese lad lodge here for 6 weeks and my internet was almost unusable - then I discovered that he was downloading movies during the day. Despite my 60 Gb allowance with Plusnet he managed to use 120Gb in a one month billing period so I made him do all his downloading after I went to bed.

debitcardmayhem

I believe the OP (Frank) asked how can he find out who is using the bandwidth , and since he is using Sky as his ISP and their waste-of-space routers most of what has been said above is not much help. Will think some more and research which router Sky are using ...I am thinking about a proxy server for all internet access, that will work wired(so no-one can bypass the wireless) and wireless and probably a DNS server too, all logging everything (loosely) so we are talking Linux/Apache. So Frank it may turn out more than how, rather than how much?

But of course someone may tell the OP that they can get the stats from their Sky router on a per MAC address basis, and at what time etc (ignoring MAC address spoofing).

Mind you it could be one of the students' girl/boy friends that are camping out in the garden, or even a.n.other using the wireless due to lack of/inefficient security.

billywhizz

If it is Sky router, then it will be useless, mine is, what you can do though is piggyback a decent router onto the Sky one if you need better reporting.

vax2002

Think i would just thank them for pointing out the problem, then cut it off.
You dont know what they are downloading and its in your name.

robmar0se

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

I believe the OP (Frank) asked how can he find out who is using the bandwidth , and since he is using Sky as his ISP and their waste-of-space routers most of what has been said above is not much help.

Thank you for reminding us that the OP is a Sky user - missed that in the original post. Under the OPs contract with Sky they HAVE to use Sky's router (although many do replace it, but then they invalidate their contract and have no recourse to Sky if they have probs). The original Sky routers were "downgraded" versions of Netgear's DG834, although recently they have distributed several other models.

So to put this back in persepective, with your current setup I suspect with the basic kit you have there is little you can do.

If you had a mind, you could connect a more sophisticated wireless access point to the router which would give more control (at the same time you would turn off the wireless on the sky router). As per my original post, with static IP addresses, that would be a start to controlling internet usage, as well as ensuring no other third party was piggy-backing on yr system - this just leaves finding out which static address is doing the downloads.

macman

I don't understand why you are getting involved with this issue-it's for the tenants to resolve amongst themselves. It's akin to you providing them with a TV in the lounge, and they then expect you to arbitrate as to which channel they watch!
My main concern would be that it's your IP address that is being recorded against all the copyrighted material that they are doubtless downloading, and you that might be pursued as a result.
If the wi-fi is not included under their tenancy agreement (you said it was a gift), then I'd tell them to resolve the issue among themselves or you will simply remove the facility, as it's being abused. You're a landlord, not a social worker or counsellor.