Steps on How to Monitor Network Traffic

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Do you what to know why you need to Monitor your Network Traffic and make it speed fast? Are is an article that will help you know how to Monitor Your Network Traffic

It might seem a little too techy or excessive, spying on all the traffic going through your home network, but it can help provide valuable insights into your network’s performance.

You’ll uncover exactly which devices, or even specific programs, are hogging your bandwidth. Through network monitoring, you can uncover where your computers are connecting and how much data they’re sending or receiving. Then, you’ll be able to correct any problems and make better use of your network.

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There are plenty of ways that you can monitor your network. The three detailed here are probably the most common and convenient.

Using Your Router On Your Network Traffic

Everyone has a router, and you can access it from nearly any device on your network. All your traffic already flows through the router, so it’s the most direct source of information about what’s going on within the network.

  • You’re going to need to find out your router’s IP address. For most routers, it’s 192.168.1.1 unless someone changed it. If you’re not sure, open a command prompt, it can also run up on Mac and Linux. On Windows, you’ll find your router’s IP listed as the Gateway.
  • Open your web browser and enter the router’s IP address in the address bar. It more like browsing on a website, so press Enter after you enter the IP address.
  • You’ll probably be prompted to enter your router’s admin username and password before you can go any further. If you didn’t set them yourself, your ISP probably did when the set it up. Look for any documentation they may have provided to sign in.
  • We have a different kind of router, and so are their interfaces. When you first sign in to most, you’ll arrive at a basic status page. It’ll show you information about your router and your network that may be useful, but not too in-depth. Try to find a Device List link to see which devices are connected to the network.
  • Your router’s device list will show you the IP addresses of the devices connected to the network. It may even provide a bit of information about what they are. You will usually see a computer’s name next to the IP if one was set. Here, you’ll also be able to see connection information for Wi-Fi devices, including their signal quality and the available bandwidth.

Wireshark

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Wireshark is an open source tool for packet filtering. If you don’t know what packet filtering is, it’s a much lower level network management task, so Wireshark can be considered overkill for simply viewing traffic on your network. That said, it can absolutely get the job done. Plus, it’s free and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

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  • You have to open your browser and head to the Wireshark download page and grab the latest installer for your operating system.
    If you’re on Linux, Wireshark is probably in your distribution’s repositories. Ubuntu and Debian users should install Wireshark with:
    $ sudo apt install Wireshark
  • Run the Wire-shark installer. Everything should be straightforward, and the default options will work in almost every case.
  • Open up Wire-shark
  • If Wire-shark looks confusing at first, don’t worry. You don’t need to know much about it for the basics. Select Edit and Preferences in the top menu to set one option that you’ll need.
  • A new window will open up. Locate Capture in the left side list and select it.
  • Let the capture run for a bit. If there’s something that you’ve been having a problem with on your network, try to recreate those circumstances. With any luck, Wireshark will capture the moment the problem occurs, and you’ll be able to take a look at what happened.

 

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