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Internet Connection Sharing Software

ssibal

Unregistered
S
Anyone know of any internet connection sharing software that has a real-time monitor of what sites any computer on the network is connected to?
 
At work we use Surf Control. It's about as comprehensive as you can get, in that it monitors who looked at what page, at what time, using what machine, for how long. It does (as far as I recall; it's been a long time since I set it up) run on MSSQL, which is quite a down side. It also allows to to block sites either by category or individually. We did have some fun testing it by going to inappropriate sites and seeing how quickly it learned. On a whim, we tried donkeysex.com (yes, it apparently exists), and it loaded the page, and the first couple of images, but then it smelled a rat (as it were) and blocked all the other images. Any further attempts to view that site were blocked automatically. I seem to remember monkeysex.com existed as well, but Surf Control knew better by that time.

The other down side is that it's really a medium-to-large business enterprise tool, so I suspect it was very expensive. It was years ago we bought it, so I don't know how much it was, but we still have to pay for subscription. There may be a smaller version that's cheaper, though.

Cheers,
Rat.
 
ratcomp1974 said:
At work we use Surf Control. It's about as comprehensive as you can get, in that it monitors who looked at what page, at what time, using what machine, for how long. It does (as far as I recall; it's been a long time since I set it up) run on MSSQL, which is quite a down side. It also allows to to block sites either by category or individually. We did have some fun testing it by going to inappropriate sites and seeing how quickly it learned. On a whim, we tried donkeysex.com (yes, it apparently exists), and it loaded the page, and the first couple of images, but then it smelled a rat (as it were) and blocked all the other images. Any further attempts to view that site were blocked automatically. I seem to remember monkeysex.com existed as well, but Surf Control knew better by that time.

The other down side is that it's really a medium-to-large business enterprise tool, so I suspect it was very expensive. It was years ago we bought it, so I don't know how much it was, but we still have to pay for subscription. There may be a smaller version that's cheaper, though.

Cheers,
Rat.

I looked through their site but could not find the information I was looking for, perhaps you can help since you have used their software. When I am talking about monitoring connections I mean when computer X from the network connects to www.randi.org that there is some sort of real time visualization of this event on the internet sharing machine. Even if its as simple as 1.1.1.1 -> 2.2.2.2, does it have that feature?
 
jimlintott said:
If you run Linux on your router you want EtherApe .

Looks nice, although I would prefer something for a Windows platform.....though I would settle for this if it is the only thing available.
 
Try the CHX-I NAT and Packet Filter packages. They have a nice "Computer Management" kind of interface, although you'll need to understand a bit about routing and NAT to get sharing working. I've found it to be quicker than Microsoft's ICS, and it will show a list of all current NAT'd connections.

http://www.idrci.net/idrci_products.htm

The only problem I've found is that it generates a lot of log files and you need to cull them every now and again to make sure the console loads quickly.

David
 
I used to use WinProxy, which shared the internet connection and I'm sure gave a window that showed what the various client machines were connecting to at any given moment. There is a free trial version, so you can give it a go and see if it's right for what you want.

http://www.winproxy.com/index.asp

It worked pretty well. I only gave it up because I moved to a Smoothwall box.
 
I'll give those a try and see which one I like best, thanks.
 

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