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Thread ID: 122075 2011-11-29 05:02:00 Braod Band Monitoring on a home network karljo (8430) Press F1
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1246226 2011-11-29 19:36:00 @ Chill-- A question regarding gargole == I notice by the pictures posted it looks and you can set the restrictions Via a IP address. -- Can you set Gargoyle by the MAC address of the network Connection ??

Reason being, and the first thing I thought of being a tech -- Simple way to avoid that is reset the IP address on the PC concerned if using static -- and if the router is issuing the IP's then all it would take is a different IP to be issued, and it defeats the Gargoyle ????


Although you can only set up via IP ranges, you can set up Gargoyle to apply a quota to all, individual, known & unknown hosts (ie any machine without a quota). So if the son got "clever" & changed his IP, you can apply an even more restrictive quota to any address you haven't explicitly set quota for. You can set quota for any individual host without a quota, or for the collective traffic of all hosts without a quota. Pretty clever stuff - you can even set time ranges, so in theory I could put in an exception for TelstraClear's upcoming free data weekend... 		MushHead (10626)
1246227 2011-11-29 20:12:00 :thanks for that mushhead I've never used Gargoyle, thats why I asked.

A lot also has to do with just how clever the offending person is.
Depending on if the parents are willing to monitor the results all the time I can think of one way instantly to easily bypass gargoyles settings the parents put in - which goes back to the opening statement.


That software I posted, can do quotas, hours, monitor other Connections, or the actual router and IP using it (as long as the router can allow SNMP) etc.

Mind you any sort of restrictions hardware or software can be bypassed if the people has the knowledge. 		wainuitech (129)
1246228 2011-11-29 20:15:00 Yeah that's true but it's possible to use the likes of a Linux LiveCD, or dual-booting to get around software. Plus, the router picks up things like an iPod Touch etc ;)

Yes by default it uses the MAC address for its association, so where you say "Limit each individual device to 1GB a week", it'll know if you change your own IP Address to something different and it won't care, it'll still log vs your MAC address (And try and get your PC Name to associate with it too to make it more humanly readable).
This is probably its downfall as you can have a laptop with both hard-wired and wireless. Plus, semi-savvy users could always go changing their MAC Address if they really wanted. There are ways to prevent that of course, by statically assigning an IP Address to both MACs and then doing it by IP, and preventing access from the network when you try and assign yourself a static IP that the router doesn't think you should have.

That, and if the father knows the router password, not the son, it works well... Coz thats what my parents had to do with the rest of my sibblings who still live at home with them. Two of them are bandwidth whores and chew up the data cap in no time.

Gargoyle is also cool, just tick a couple of buttons and its easy to disable the likes of Bittorrent. You can download the file, but can't do anything *with* the torrent from there. Very cool! :D

Here's a screenshot of the router at my parents place:
Usage:
3405
Their setup:
3406

An example setup if you were on Telstraclears "unlimited weekends" and you dont want the quota to count during the weekends:
3407

As you can see, it's *very* flexible! :D


Edit: Haha snap ... Took me almost an hour to write that post, busy working, and I find it funny that MushHead also mentioned the free TelstraClear weekends! I shoulda refreshed before posting :p 		Chilling_Silence (9)
1246229 2011-11-29 20:53:00 Gargoyle is good, no problems there, but keep in mind what Karljo originally stated:
and does not believe he is using a lot of bandwidth (3Gb today). We may find spending $$ on new routers to support Gargoyle a waste of money -- if all he wants to do is prove (or not) that it is the son watching youtube, then all may be fine. ( doubt it though ;) )


Took me almost an hour to write that post, busy working Sure you are, we believe you -- the boss about was he :D :p

I'm working too -- 3 PC's and the boss dont give a hoot, oh wait -- I am the boss :) 		wainuitech (129)
1246230 2011-11-29 21:45:00 Yeah its just that the last few times I've heard "Nah it can't be me", it's actually a code-word for "Yeah it's me, but you can't prove it's me, so if I just deny it then you can't get upset at me".

My younger brother, downloaded TeamFortress2 via Steam, 10-odd GB. Didn't believe it was him who had used the majority of the 20GB cap in under a week at my parents place.

My youngest brother the next month spent 5 hours watching Pokemon on YouTube in 720p. Didn't believe it was him...

My brother-in-law, streamed a whole lot of music off the internet for two days solid, didn't believe it was him... So we put a bandwidth monitor on his PC, but turns out he was disabling it and then denied it.

Another brother-in-law, downloaded about 4GB worth of Apps to his iPod Touch, denied he'd used anything...

Funny coz it's always the boys :p 		Chilling_Silence (9)
1246231 2011-11-30 03:52:00 My bet would be he'll have a P2P torrent downloader like Limewire, Azureus, Bitorrent, UTorrent, etc installed.
These programs really soak up the gigs especially if set to auto start up. 		Tbird650 (6754)
1246232 2011-12-04 09:59:00 Have got around the Norton problem by downloading the portable version which is in a zip file . Have been monitoring myself with Networx and it is very interesting to see what uses bandwidth .

Have spent a bit of time with my routhers manual (DLInk DIR-615)and am looking at MAC filtering . I also see that I can put gargoyle on it and like the idea of allocating quotas - then its not my problem, its his .

Am I right in thinking that gargoyle for the Linksys router is just a firmware update . Installing it on the DLink seems a lot more complicated as you have to install openWRT first . Not quite sure I understand how to telnet ( . openwrt . org/toh/d-link/dir-615" target="_blank">wiki . openwrt . org) as in step 11 "[1] Go back to telnet and run 'opkg update', to get full package list . " Otherwise I might give that a go on my existing hardware rather than buyihg a new piece of gear .

Thanks to everyone for their help so far . Learning new stuff is great . 		karljo (8430)
1246233 2011-12-04 18:10:00 Yes, it's *much* easier to flash for the Linksys. Just open the browser, choose "Firmware upgrade", point it to the file, and hit "upgrade"! :D Chilling_Silence (9)
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