Home Network Monitoring (A Complete Guide)

Imagine living a day without the internet. Can’t even imagine, right? Nowadays, the internet has become an essential part of our lives. People are using the internet to automate homes. Almost everything we do needs an active internet connection. From education to jobs, everything is computer-based and hence needs the internet. But just having the internet doesn’t suffice. The speed of the internet also matters. A slow internet connection is of no use. We often face slow internet even if we have Wi–fi in our house. Ever thought about why this happens? Ever heard about home network monitoring?

A Home Network Monitoring is a Tool For Packet Capturing, Flow Records, Configuring Network For Exemplifying Packets To The Monitoring Computer, Assuring All The Devices Links Properly, and Testing The Setup.

There are many reasons for a slow internet, one being excess devices connected to Wi-fi. This hampers the speed and performance of the Wi-fi. Therefore, studying and monitoring the performance of our home networks is essential. The need to have bigger and better home networks is also increasing daily. A more extensive network means a bigger chance of some failure of the components in the network. Hence, network monitoring becomes more crucial. In this article, we have jotted down everything you need to know about home network monitoring and how to perform it yourself. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

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What Is Home Network Monitoring?

We can define Network monitoring as a system constantly monitoring a computer network for slow or failing components. This system notifies the administrator in case of outages or issues. In short, in network monitoring, you can keep an eye on devices that connect to your network, how much data these devices are consuming, are these devices faulty whether these devices can hamper the speed of your network.

Also, the network monitoring system informs the administrator about the faulty machines that connect to the network and how they will be responsible for hampering the network. You will get a visualization of the things happening in your network. Home network monitoring can also help check which device is consuming maximum bandwidth, To keep a check on what the kids are watching on the net, or check on zero–day malware infections that antivirus software does not get detected.

Now, how do we perform home network monitoring? Let’s see.

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How Is Home Network Monitoring Performed?

Home network monitoring can be performed either on one computer or multiple computers. Performing network monitoring on a single computer is quite simple. But monitoring multiple computers that connect to a network is a bit complicated. We will take you through both ways.

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Performing Network Monitoring On A Single Computer

To perform network monitoring on a single computer is pretty simple because it already has access to its traffic. Follow the below steps to monitor a single computer:

1. Open any browser window.
2. Enter https://www.glasswire.com in the address bar.
3. Download ‘glass wire’ software. This software is available for free.
4. After the download is complete, run the glass wire software.
5. Once the software is installed successfully, open the application.
6. You will see all the network traffic on the software’s homepage in a graphical form.
7. If you want to see the network traffic of individual apps, then you can view it in the apps section.
8. This software includes many other features, like a firewall, usage, network, and alerts.

You can easily monitor the network traffic on your computer using the glass wire software.

Many other free software is available for network monitoring on a single computer. Each software comes with a different set of features that may be interesting. You can try and test different software and then choose the optimal one.

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Performing Network Monitoring On Multiple Computers

A bit complex setup is required to perform network monitoring on multiple computers. You require to add two main components to the setup of the network you desire to monitor:

 

• A separate computer that has network monitoring tools installed in it.
• A network apparatus with port mirroring abilities for sending a document of the entire network traffic to the monitoring computer.

Now, let’s get your home network monitoring set up and operating. Follow the steps below:

Picking A Monitoring Computer And Installing Tools

You are required to install two important tools on your monitoring computer.

Tool For Packet Capturing

A packet capturing tool keeps a total record of all the datagrams being sent among the monitor machines. Some packet-capturing tools that you can install are Wireshark and Tshark.

These tools are open–source.

See also: How To Capture Packets With Wire Shark 

Flow Record

A flow record provides an abstract of home network monitoring activity. They provide information like ports and sources, the destination IP addresses, the protocols used, and the number of packets and bytes sent. But they do not provide details about the packet contents. Some well–known open–source flow record tools are Argus and Tcpdump.

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Configuring Network For Exemplifying Packets To The Monitoring Computer

Port mirroring is defined as setting up source ports to deliver a photocopy of each packet revived to a destination port. We will perform port mirroring by connecting the home network monitoring machine to the destination port.

 

Now the monitoring machine can view a replica of all packets on the network. If port mirroring does not perform, the packets will omit the monitoring computer and go and come from the router. Some routers come with built-in uphold for port mirroring. If not, then NETGEAR’s ProSAFE Plus GS105Ev2 switch is a convenient option for performing port mirroring.

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Assuring That All The Devices Links Properly

The devices we want to monitor must be linked to the mirroring source ports.

 

Also, the ethernet port of the home network monitoring computer should link to the destination port. Along with all this setup, you will need two routers for imposing all packets through the mirroring switch.

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Testing The Setup

You can test whether or not the home network monitoring computer captures network traffic.

 

You can run the tcpdump command on an ethernet interface and percolate the tcp traffic unrelated to the monitoring machine’s IP address.

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FAQS

How to keep track of activity on my home network?

You can use your router or modem as a monitoring tool for internet usage. Numerous built-in capabilities in routers and modems also let you monitor the data usage of each networked device. Hence, you must sign in to your router or modem's web-based interface to access them.

Can anyone view my incognito history?

Yes. Incognito mode has a detail of the history. So, your surfing history is not concealed from anyone. Your browsing history, current location, and any private information you may disclose are visible. Only others sharing your smartphone can see your actions in incognito mode.

Can the owner see activity on the WiFi?

Yes. A WiFi network's owner may monitor who is using it to browse the internet. However, the time and training on your PC are in the log data router's view.

What does network monitoring include?

Software and hardware tools that track traffic, bandwidth usage, and uptime are part of systems for keeping track of a network's operation. However, these systems can recognize systems and other network components and update users on their status.

Is Google history private?

Yes. While browsing secretly, browsing history is hidden from other device users. However, chrome does not save your form data and browsing history. Hence, site data deletes automatically when you exit Incognito mode but is present while browsing.

Conclusion

Voila! Now, you can efficiently perform home network monitoring all by yourself. We hope this guide was helpful to you. The software that we have mentioned above is just a suggestion. A pool of software is available online, which you can choose from according to your requirements. Do leave your valuable responses that motivate us to write more for you. Thank you, and good luck with your home network monitoring endeavors. Ciao!

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