[GRLUG] Finding the bandwidth hog

[Ben Rousch]

On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 3:43 PM, Benjamin Flanders <flanderb at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 2:51 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Benjamin Flanders <flanderb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I've been tasked to find out what running on our network that is
>>> taking a good chunk of our internet bandwidth.  Quite simply I don't
>>> know where to start.  I've got all the people that stream music to
>>> stop, and we are still seeing a lot of traffic.  Will wireshark help
>>> out?  What other programs are out there?  I do have a cisco pix
>>> firewall that perhaps I could use, if I knew how.
>>
>> What kind of router are you currently using? If it's a Linux box, I'd
>> suggest trying 'iftop'. Unless your version of iftop has the IPv6
>> patches, though, it'll only show you IPv4 flows.
>>
> Thank you for your help.  it took a while, but it seems that our
> streaming users plus our reporting tool are causing the spikes.  Once
> we stopped our streaming usage and when a meeting got out(they were
> using the reporting tool)  we dropped down to a manageable trickle.  I
> really hate to have to tell our users that they can't stream.  We have
> some diehard Pandora fans, and I believe that music can help the work
> environment.

Streaming over a T1 is fine if you're the only one using the Internet.
From the Pandora FAQ:
"Minimum internet requirements:
Consistent bandwidth of at least 150 Kbps
If you upgraded to Pandora One and want to use High Quality audio, we
recommend having at least 300 Kbps of bandwidth."
http://help.pandora.com/customer/portal/articles/166391-minimum-specifications-to-run-pandora

If people want to listen to Pandora let them do it over their 3G
connection. Seriously. I'm pretty nice to my users but streaming
services are crazy bandwidth hogs, especially if you're all sharing a
T1.

-- 
 Ben Rousch
   brousch at gmail.com
   http://clusterbleep.net/

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