Controlling Pc From Server?

[andrea_gavana]

Hello Kartic & NG,

Thank you for your prompt answer. In effect, I'm trying to work on
a NT network of 6 PC (plus the server). Sorry to not have been clearer.
Ideally, I'm trying to monitor the Internet activity of each client (PC)
on this network (but I'm not a boss trying to control my emplyees, I'm just
curious on it). I would like to know which PC is connected to Internet (by
starting something like a "timer" for every PC, and then periodically check
if a particular PC is connected or not). This should be done from the main
server.
Did I make myself clear? Do you think it would be a huge task?

Sorry, it may be a very basic question, but thank you for your help.

Andrea.

 

[Kartic]

(e-mail address removed) said the following on 2/27/2005 8:40 AM:

Hello Kartic & NG,

Thank you for your prompt answer. In effect, I'm trying to work on
a NT network of 6 PC (plus the server). Sorry to not have been clearer.
Ideally, I'm trying to monitor the Internet activity of each client (PC)
on this network (but I'm not a boss trying to control my emplyees, I'm just
curious on it). I would like to know which PC is connected to Internet (by
starting something like a "timer" for every PC, and then periodically check
if a particular PC is connected or not). This should be done from the main
server.
Did I make myself clear? Do you think it would be a huge task?

Sorry, it may be a very basic question, but thank you for your help.

Andrea.

Sounds like you are spying :-D

Your requirement may sound basic but I don't *think* it is simple to do.
Since you are using NT, you can probably see if there is some Network
Usage auditing tool. This might cost you some $$ or may be you can find
some shareware.

For a homegrown solution, if I am not mistaken, you will have to use
libpcap (or pypcap) to monitor the packets being sent and received,
taking care to exclude the local subnet (or your reporting will be
skewed as packets sent to the monitoring server will also be included!).
You can check http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/pypcap/ for more
details...and may be for more ideas.

Thanks,
-Kartic

 

[Kartic]

Kartic said the following on 2/27/2005 8:54 AM:

For a homegrown solution, if I am not mistaken, you will have to use
libpcap (or pypcap) to monitor the packets being sent and received,
taking care to exclude the local subnet (or your reporting will be
skewed as packets sent to the monitoring server will also be included!).
You can check http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/pypcap/ for more
details...and may be for more ideas.

http://winpcap.polito.it/docs/man/html/group__remote__help.html

- Should help. This uses the Winpcap library. Not sure if the same can
be done using the Python bindings for pcap.

 

[Pierre Barbier de Reuille]

(e-mail address removed) a écrit :

Hello Kartic & NG,

Thank you for your prompt answer. In effect, I'm trying to work on
a NT network of 6 PC (plus the server). Sorry to not have been clearer.
Ideally, I'm trying to monitor the Internet activity of each client (PC)
on this network (but I'm not a boss trying to control my emplyees, I'm just
curious on it). I would like to know which PC is connected to Internet (by
starting something like a "timer" for every PC, and then periodically check
if a particular PC is connected or not). This should be done from the main
server.
Did I make myself clear? Do you think it would be a huge task?

Sorry, it may be a very basic question, but thank you for your help.

Andrea.

If what you want is to monitor internet requests, the best place to do
so is the gateway of your network. If you don't have access to the
gateway, you can always set your server as the gateway for your machines
and your server will need to redirect the IP flux to the real gateway.
That way, you don't need anything on the client side. On the server,
just look at the fluxes toward the internet and you can do wathever you
want with it. After that, as I don't know the windows implementation of
a gateway, I can't help you ...

Pierre

 

[Larry Bates]

What you are asking IS much more difficult that just "timing".
The Internet is a disconnected stateless medium. I can open
a browser to a site and just leave my browser open. Am I viewing
that site or not? There's no way to know. I might have minimized
the browser window and am back doing productive work (assuming
my access to the web was non-productive).

The best way I've found to do what you want is to force all
HTTP traffic through a proxy (I like Squid, but others
work as well). The proxy cache logs can provide you with
lost of information about where people are going and how much
information they download from the site. They cannot however
tell you how long someone was there because of what I mentioned
above. You can see if someone is going to www.nascar.com or
www.espn.com or to some other site. You can also block sites
quite easily if there is no legitimate reason for people to
be at that site.

Hope info helps.
Larry Bates