LAN Hosts
Monitoring traffic for every LAN host in real time
You've probably noticed that the icons of the list elements are flashing from time to time. That's the way CommTraffic signals the network activities that involve these hosts, ports, or protocols.
By default, the list elements are not expandable. However, this "flat" list can be easily turned into a tree, where each item can be expanded to display additional information. Just click Action => Options and select Detailed view:
This useful feature makes it possible to view details about each local or remote host, port or protocol. CommTraffic scrupulously collects network data in real time, filters it, and displays the results in a convenient form.
For instance, we can see that one of the local hosts on the LAN is downloading files from a certain web site. Going to the Remote Hosts page allows us to find out who else has downloaded or is downloading files from this web site at the moment, and how much data has been downloaded.
By changing the time periods using the Period button, we can limit the time span for which the report is generated. Clicking on the list headers sorts the data. If you're monitoring a busy LAN segment, the huge amount of data shown on these pages may be quite disorienting. Using the Move active items to the top and Limit the number of rows displayed boxes in the Options window will make reading the data much easier, as the program will focus on the most important items:
Move active items to the top deactivates list sorting and dynamically moves the most active items to the top. Limit the number of rows displayed is particularly handy when combined with the Move active items to the top option. Specify how many list items you want to be displayed, and the display will be limited to the most active items only. The rest of the items will be grouped under Other.
If you don't feel like memorizing information on who owns this or that IP address or what port number 135 means, you can assign easy-to-remember aliases. To do this, select Create Alias either under the Actions menu or in Settings => Network => IP Aliases, MAC Aliases and Port Aliases:
Not only are these traffic details displayed in real-time mode, but also they are stored in the log files in a compact form, without taking up much disk space. However, the user can manually change the extent to which traffic data is detailed. Which, in turn, will affect the log size. These settings are available at Settings => Network => Advanced under the Traffic log files and statistics included caption.
You can also deactivate hostname resolution on the same page; in which case IP addresses will be shown in numeric form only. This option may be of interest for security reasons (if you want to conceal the fact of proactive network monitoring), or when hostname resolution overloads the network or DNS servers.
