Linux Proxy Server Advice
I'm looking for a Internet Proxy solution to monitor the usage of bandwidth in our company.
We have 40 staff overloading our connection at some times of the day.
I want to police our internet connection and find out if someone is using illegal downloading software.( Torrents etc ) At the very least identify the highest user of internet bandwidth.
The ideal solution I'm looking for will do the following:
1) Display current connections (LAN IP Address and Destination)
2) Log usage
3) Show Torrent usage
4) Display usage in a chart - or at least export data so I can use reporting tools
5) Show a top 10 Users and top 10 Sites by Hit Count or Megabyte
We also have 3 internet connections, so it would be great if this proxy was able to load balance.
Thanks
Mchallinor
We have 40 staff overloading our connection at some times of the day.
I want to police our internet connection and find out if someone is using illegal downloading software.( Torrents etc ) At the very least identify the highest user of internet bandwidth.
The ideal solution I'm looking for will do the following:
1) Display current connections (LAN IP Address and Destination)
2) Log usage
3) Show Torrent usage
4) Display usage in a chart - or at least export data so I can use reporting tools
5) Show a top 10 Users and top 10 Sites by Hit Count or Megabyte
We also have 3 internet connections, so it would be great if this proxy was able to load balance.
Thanks
Mchallinor
You have SQUID that would do it or most of it but you will have to configure rules into it. You can sure dump the rejected connections into logs and then read that from web browser but you have to be Linux savvy.
http://www.squid-cache.org/
http://www.squid-cache.org/
The good thing is that Squid is open source and free to use.
Squid is built into Smoothwall express.
The bonus with smoothwall is that its very quick and easy to install with minimal linux knowledge, if you are more comfortable with linux you can also ssh into smoothwall to do more.
Nothing wrong with squid at all, but smoothwall adds more features - particularly QoS that can be particularly useful for a shared connection.
The bonus with smoothwall is that its very quick and easy to install with minimal linux knowledge, if you are more comfortable with linux you can also ssh into smoothwall to do more.
Nothing wrong with squid at all, but smoothwall adds more features - particularly QoS that can be particularly useful for a shared connection.
Oh and Smoothwall express is Open Source and covered under the GPL - see the section "GPL and Open Source Software" at the following location: http://leaseweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/smoothwall/SmoothWall%20Manuals/3.0/smoothwall-express-3.0-install-guide.pdf
Note that link is one mirror from sourceforge, you can select the download direct from sourceforge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/smoothwall/
There are also mods available as a seperate sourceforge project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/smoothiemods/
Note that link is one mirror from sourceforge, you can select the download direct from sourceforge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/smoothwall/
There are also mods available as a seperate sourceforge project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/smoothiemods/
ASKER
Hi QEMS,
I've heard a lot about Squid. Interesting that Smoothwall makes the deployment easier for me.
From the screen shots its looks very much like the kind of UI you get with any appliance firewall.
We have a firewall already in place and ideally I just want this to sit on the LAN side of the network (behind the existing firewall) - configured like a proxy server so all internet traffic from our staff is going through this (Linux) web proxy.
The key objective is to identify the heaviest Internet user and discover what websites they are viewing. At this stage we are not interested in blocking anything, just monitoring usage.
As you can imagine, if the company internet is getting throttled by people using Itunes, Limewire, BitTorrent etc, I want to know who is the culprit.
Thanks, I will keep looking at Smoothwall and the mods you have discussed.
I've heard a lot about Squid. Interesting that Smoothwall makes the deployment easier for me.
From the screen shots its looks very much like the kind of UI you get with any appliance firewall.
We have a firewall already in place and ideally I just want this to sit on the LAN side of the network (behind the existing firewall) - configured like a proxy server so all internet traffic from our staff is going through this (Linux) web proxy.
The key objective is to identify the heaviest Internet user and discover what websites they are viewing. At this stage we are not interested in blocking anything, just monitoring usage.
As you can imagine, if the company internet is getting throttled by people using Itunes, Limewire, BitTorrent etc, I want to know who is the culprit.
Thanks, I will keep looking at Smoothwall and the mods you have discussed.
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Smoothwall express 3 is really good and its free to use: http://www.smoothwall.org/
They also have a commercial version if you require additional features and professional support, have a look at http://www.smoothwall.net/live/index.php