How to Monitor Internet Traffic with Colasoft Packet Sniffer

Internet traffic is the flow of data around the Internet. It includes web traffic, which is the amount of that data that is related to the World Wide Web, along with the traffic from other major uses of the Internet, such as electronic mail and peer-to-peer networks.

In case we want to monitor internet traffic generated or is generating in LAN, here is a detailed process how we can monitor internet traffic with Colasoft Packet Sniffer - Capsa.

Again we must make sure the packet sniffer software is correctly implemented so we can capture all the traffic in LAN, if you don't know how to do it, please make sure you read how to implement a packet sniffer.

First let's start a capture with Colasoft Packet Sniffer, then do some online activities, such as chatting, browsing a website, sending and receiving emails, downloading some files. All these activities will generate different kinds of internet traffic. We may keep the project running to continuously monitor internet traffic or stop the project to do some analysis.

To monitor internet traffic, we'd better first select the Internet Addresses in the Node Explorer:

Locate Internet Addresses in the Node Explorer

Figure 1: Locate Internet Addresses in the Node Explorer

We can see that all the internet addresses are listed by countries, to monitor internet traffic of a specific country, we just need click on it. If we want to monitor internet traffic of a specific IP address within one country, we need to expand the country node and select the IP address in it.

Also we can monitor internet traffic aggregated or internet traffic in real-time.

Traffic statistics in the IP Endpoint tab

Figure 2: Traffic statistics in the IP Endpoint tab

To view what online activities have generated or are generating internet traffic, we need to use the Protocol Tab.

Network application in the Protocol tab

Figure 3: Network application in the Protocol tab

We can see there are protocols which separately stand for different internet activities:

  • HTTP - Website browsing
  • MSN - online chatting with Live Messenger
  • POP3 - Email
  • HTTPS - Website browsing via a secure link
  • ...