I need a network monitoring program that I can run from my computer, but that monitors my entire network for my house. My ISP imposes a data cap of 300GB per month. Due to finances some of my family members had to move in with me, and last month we exceeded the data cap. Since this is for my home, free would probably be my only option. In case it helps, my home network is composed of two hardwired Windows desktops and, on average, 5 to 7 wireless devices from phones to laptops to game consoles.
The program must be able to do the following:
- Monitor the entire network from one Windows or Linux desktop.
- Either send an email alert or turn off internet access for the network when a specified amount of internet data has been used. Both is preferable, but either will work independently.
There are three things that would be nice for the program to have, but are by no means requirements:
- If the program can keep track of how much data is being used by each device, it would be nice.
- If the program can terminate an individual wireless device's network connection after it uses a certain amount of data, it would be great.
- If the program can put devices into a group and terminate the network connection of all devices in a group after a group has collectively used a certain amount of data, that would allow me to put each family member's devices into a group and allot each person an amount of data to use.
I realize these features are pretty much a wishlist and I probably won't find such features in a free program.
I have already tried every program on this list, but none of them did what I needed. I also have tried a program called Networx, but I have two problems with it. The first is that I feel like it is reading more data than is actually moving to and from the internet. The second is that for it to work in the situation I need it to, I would have to have it running on a computer in between my modem and my wireless router, and I don't have a spare pc to do that with. It has an option to monitor the modem directly, but I have been unable to get it to work with my modem, and I am certain it was monitoring more data than was moving to and from the internet when I tried it at a friend's house.