Question Asus RT86U traffic monitoring

[finwizz]

I am using RT86U with AsusWRT firmware. Is there a way to monitor device usage please? I need to keep an eye on usage by a "guest" for a short time!

If Asus cannot, is there a third party software that will do it please?

 

[thx1138v2]

WireShark will do it but it has a fairly steep learning curve:
WireShark

 

[bill001g]

You don't want to load asuswrt load merlin instead, they have not kept asuswrt updated.

You can see something in the usage screens but at most you will see the sites they are using.

It tends to be extremely hard to monitor in general because of the https encryption. Companies quickly moved to https when it was discovered the government was collecting information. If the government can't see much you will no be able to either.

Even IP addresses do not tell much anymore. This site is a example. If you look the ip address up it comes back to akamai not tomshardware.

 

[finwizz]

You don't want to load asuswrt load merlin instead, they have not kept asuswrt updated.

My mistake - I am using Merlin firmware.

 

[finwizz]

You don't want to load asuswrt load merlin instead, they have not kept asuswrt updated.

You can see something in the usage screens but at most you will see the sites they are using.

It tends to be extremely hard to monitor in general because of the https encryption. Companies quickly moved to https when it was discovered the government was collecting information. If the government can't see much you will no be able to either.

Even IP addresses do not tell much anymore. This site is a example. If you look the ip address up it comes back to akamai not tomshardware.

So, there is no way for me to know what my "guest" is using / doing? Does not a say "Nanny watch" type of software work? One that monitors child activities?

 

[bill001g]

If the software is loaded on the end device it will work. The software can see the data before it is encrypted. After the data in encrypted you are very limited. You could restrict some sites via IP address but you would have to get a ever changing list. Again like this site a web site is not actually a single location many times. This is why there are subscription services to provide these lists of ip as well as categorize them.

In addition if the person you want to monitor knows you are monitoring and wants to make it hard on you they will load a VPN service.

This is why software on the end device is always the best option but if the user has admin authority it might be possible to bypass.