For example, it is not possible to identify HTTP traffic on ports other tand 443 as HTTP. Note: Sometimes, this method is not fully accurate. This is a very fast method which saves system resources. As soon as you connect one of the PRTG probe system's network cards to the switch's monitoring port, PRTG is able to analyze the complete traffic that passes through the switch.Īnother option is to set up the PC running PRTG as the gateway for all other computers in the network.įind details on how to set up the different flow sensors in the following sections:įor packet sniffing, PRTG looks at the IP addresses and ports of source and destination to assess the protocol. In this case, the switch sends a copy to the monitoring port of all data packages traveling through the switch. If you also want to monitor the traffic of other devices in your network, you must use a switch that offers a monitoring port or port mirroring configuration (Cisco calls it SPAN).
In switched networks, only the traffic for a specific machine is sent to each machine's network card, so PRTG can usually not discern the traffic of the other machines in the network. This is fine if you only want to monitor the traffic of this machine (e.g., your web server). It is important to understand that the packet sniffer can only access and inspect data packages that actually flow through the network interface(s) of the machine running the PRTG probe software. Using remote probes, you can set up packet sniffers anywhere in your network (see Add Remote Probe section).Ĭomparing the four bandwidth monitoring technologies which PRTG provides (SNMP, WMI, xFlow, and packet sniffer) this one creates the most CPU and network load, so you should only use it in small to medium networks, on dedicated computers for larger networks or for individual computers. To calculate bandwidth usage, PRTG inspects all network data packets either passing the PC's network card (shown on the left side in the schema above) or the data packages that a monitoring port of a switch (right side) sends with its built-in packet sniffer.
PRTG can analyze the packets passing the network card of a PC or you can connected it to the monitoring port of a switch. Monitoring with PRTG via Packet Sniffer Sensors
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