Tracking Down Bandwidth Hogs

[gragnous]

Using Asus RT-N66U with Merlin 378.55

I'm trying to figure what is eating up bandwidth on my network. I first suspected NetFlix or Youtube, so I blocked those outright from the entire network. However, there is still something hogging bandwidth.

I've enabled Traffic Monitor and can see what devices are the biggest culprits. However, I'd like to "drill down" into the data to try to figure out it there is a specific server IP these devices are accessing.

I assume I can look at the time line of the traffic monitor to see when the bandwidth is being used, then look at the system log for connections made around that time and try to manually resolve the IP address. Is there a better what to track this down? Is there any software app that will help visualize the system log data?

 

[gatorback]

How many devices are connected to the network?

Is feasible to use a process of elimination?

Are you open to other firmware like Tomato or DD-WRT that feature the ability to limit/track bandwidth on a device basis?

 

[wh7qq]

Since you can see which devices are hogging, you can run wireshark on them to get a look at specific IPs but not sure if anything like wireshark is available for mobile/other devices and you also will probably need to create some filters to thin out the vast amount of info that wireshark generates. If the times are consistent, you can look only at a specific time interval to get a better idea.

 

[gragnous]

Thank you for the suggestions. I'm very familiar with DD-WRT; with the merlin firmware I'm also able to see which devices are hogging bandwidth in real time and over time. The device I'm particularly concerned about is a mobile (android) device, so I guess wireshark is out.

I guess what I'm really looking for is software that can filter the system log by device, time range, and then help resolve the remote IP so I can see to what this device is connecting. I was just hoping there was a way to do this in the router firmware.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I don't believe that the log file contains that information.

 

[Dirk_Diggler]

I am pretty sure on the Merlin firmware the log file will show you what sites or IP addresses are being accessed as well as time. Like I can tell my daughters Roku has a lot of Netflix and Pandora traffic.