[SOLVED] Router with data logging

[highlander317]

Hi all,
I,m looking for advice on upgrading my ISP (UK) plusnet hub one modem router, to something newer, hopefully wifi 6, that has data logging ability. I have the BT modem which is currently not needed for the Plusnet modem/router, and am happy to add that back into the network.
I'm only getting some ideas together to get idea of price
Cheers for any tips

 

[Lutfij]

Pretty much any router that has QoS or network management per device/IP address will allow you to log your networking data. I own an Asus RT-AC55UHP and that although it's old has the function. The routers these days will have it for sure. I tend to look at Asus gear for networking since their GUI is simple and intuitive.

 

[bill001g]

What do you mean by "data logging".

First routers in general have no place to store data in the long term. Although you would think they could write it to a external flash USB driver but it is not a feature you see in factory firmware. I suspect there is little demand for it.

A much larger issue is going to be how fast is your internet connection. To get very high speed data transfers the NAT function has been moved off the CPU. This means the CPU does not see the data and therefore can not monitor or log it. You can turn this feature off but then the CPU must do all the work which will cap your speed to well under 200mbps even with the fastest router cpu.

So if your internet is fairly small and your logging needs are fairly simple you likely can use a router that you can load dd-wrt or other third party firmware on. They have some limited abilities and many support a method of logging to a external server. That way the router does not have to generate the reports or consolidate the data just collect it. For some reason today I just can't remember what that is called, it is based on a similar feature in cisco commercial routers.

Since you really need a server to collect data and run reports you likely are better off using a dual nic pc and run one of the many linux based firewalls. Almost all can collect and generate reports on many different categories.

 

[kanewolf]

Hi all,
I,m looking for advice on upgrading my ISP (UK) plusnet hub one modem router, to something newer, hopefully wifi 6, that has data logging ability. I have the BT modem which is currently not needed for the Plusnet modem/router, and am happy to add that back into the network.
I'm only getting some ideas together to get idea of price
Cheers for any tips

The other problem, besides what @bill001g said is that most WAN traffic is encrypted. You can't get any information about the contents of the connection. You can still get DNS info. My recommendation for most "logging" is to setup a Raspberry PI running PIHole software. Then point all your network the PI as the DNS server. You can then capture all the DNS traffic.