Logging system usage -

[Lamar Owen]

On Wednesday, March 30, 2011 12:31:31 pm Bob Goodwin wrote:
>         Is there an application to log system usage that will enable me
>         to keep track of usage by individual computers on our LAN?
[snip]
>         So I am looking for a scheme for tracking usage by mac or device
>         address. I check usage daily but when I see a jump upward I need
>         to know what caused it, I always begin to think through what I
>         have done before panicking the whole family.  Any suggestion
>         appreciated.

ntop is one possibility, and it's present in the Fedora repositories.  You need a netflow source; nprobe can do that, and ntop can use built-in interfaces, or can take netflow data from your switch, if that switch is capable of netflow export.  You need either what's known as a 'SPAN' port on your switch, or you need a hub on a common connection, possibly the WAN port itself, to be able to sniff all the traffic in lieu of netflow data export.

For the DD-WRT side of things, since you mention that you use that, please see:
http://netflowninjas.lancope.com/blog/2009/07/turn-your-linksys-into-a-netflow-exporter-ddwrt.html

and

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Useful_tools_for_the_WiFi_Network