[JKT]

I had to reset my wireless router recently and either I had a runaway process on my Mac that sucked up bandwidth to the tune of 30GB over a couple of days, or some bastard hacked into my network while it was temporarily unprotected after the reset and did likewise (note, I normally have a WAP password set, along with a MAC access control list, but I have the feeling that my supposedly restored settings from the router backup I made before the reset did not take so I have been left open to exploitation for the entire period since the reset).

Does anyone know which OS X log file(s) I can look at that will show me the network usage of my own Mac? I didn't see anything that I could identify explicitly in console.log or system.log but there is a lot of "noise" in there and I might have missed what should be obvious, so is there another log or logs that will show me network access alone. I want to make sure it isn't something on my own Mac that is downloading a bucket load of data before I purchase more bandwidth usage.

This is my iMac running 10.5.1 fwiw. The PowerBook in my sig has been asleep during this period.

Thanks very much.

P.S. I wasn't using any torrent software, so it isn't due to piracy on my part.

[JellyBeen]

I use this little utility, works quite well.

SkoobySoft - Skooby Utilities

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by JKT 

I (note, I normally have a WAP password set, along with a MAC access control list, but I have the feeling that my supposedly restored settings from the router backup I made before the reset did not take so I have been left open to exploitation for the entire period since the reset).

Its not MAC but Mac

oh wait

[besson3c]

You can monitor network traffic using tcpdump. To log it, you'll need to setup the snmp service, and you'll need software to format this raw data into useful output for you. For this, I would suggest Cacti, it is available in the Macports repository.

Keep in mind that if you run snmp on your Mac you will only be monitoring traffic coming in and out of it, not your network as a whole. Your router will need to support traffic logging if you want to keep track of your entire LAN.

[JKT]

Hi,

thanks everyone, but I need to look at any data I might have for the past 5 days or so, not so much the data from now on (I can just view the network activity in real time in Activity Monitor for that, and the Skooby Surplus Meter is also proving useful in that regard - thanks JellyBeen).

No ideas on any logs I can look at from OS X rather than from my router?

TIA

[JKT]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Its not MAC but Mac

oh wait

...groan

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by JKT 

Hi,

thanks everyone, but I need to look at any data I might have for the past 5 days or so, not so much the data from now on (I can just view the network activity in real time in Activity Monitor for that, and the Skooby Surplus Meter is also proving useful in that regard - thanks JellyBeen).

No ideas on any logs I can look at from OS X rather than from my router?

TIA

Network traffic is not logged by your OS unless you are running snmp. However, even if you were to enable snmp now it would not be able to pull up retroactive data.

[JKT]

Ok, that's all I need to know... if there are no logs, there are no logs. Anyway, back online and so far there is no unusual activity, but I restarted my Mac yesterday so it could have ceased any problem process if there was one.

[The Placid Casual]

I use a little app called 'Menumeters', give you a real time network usage display (as well as cpu, disk usage etc should you want it) in your menu bar.

Raging Menace - MenuMeters

Best freeware by far, couldn't live without it.