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Use the FiOS Actiontec router to log websites visited?

Hi, I have Fios phone, tv and internet. I have the actiontec router. my desktop is connected via a lan cable, and my kids use a laptop wirelessly. I want to be able to log into the router and see what sites they are visiting...

can this be done with the actiontec, and if so, how?

Comments

lasagna

No, not really. You could turn on event logging in the firewall settings to log all "accepted" outgoing connections, but this isn't going to readily translate to hostnames and URL strings to give you anything visible.

I would suggest looking at your anti-virus product suite, or if you don't have content filtering / logging as part of that suite look into getting Bluecoat's K9 software which is free for home use and provides you with all kinds of monitoring capabilities as well as filtering for specific categories.

tony1853

Hi, thanks for your reply. I am really looking to do it at the router, and not at the computer level...because I cannot risk it being discovered that something like K9 is on the users computer....so that is why I thought that something at the router level would be the safest....

spacedebris

I think lasagna is right. The only network monitoring tools I know of are pc based not router based. Now if you want to get really involved, I suppose you could create a server to have all your computers run through and then put network monitoring on it. But I think this is likely much more involved than you want to get.

Now if you are wanting to keep the kids off adult sites, you could turn on the parental controls in the router. But this would just block access, not keep track of the sites.

lasagna

Yeah .. transparent squid proxy or similar would do the trick, but this would be an involved setup and not something most would desire to try on their own.

Things I can suggest ...

1. I long ago had the conversation with my child about Internet safety and monitoring. I showed them that I put the software on the computer and showed them exactly how to turn it off. THEN ... I told him what would happen if it ever got turned off, if the log files ever turned up corrupted or missing data, if the rule based was modified, etc. I let him know I would be checking - unannounced - and that anything out of sorts was a bad as finding inappropriate surfing in the logs themselves. Does he like it? Not necessarily. Does he respect it? Absolutely.

2. I also use OpenDNS (free account) and have the DHCP server feed the OpenDNS servers as the servers clients should use. This doubles with the K9 software in that I can block by category access to undesired sites. Works really well. This is a bit less intrusive and doesn't give you the url by url breakdown, but it does a nice job of blocking a lot of the inappropriate content out there.

I'm sure others can give some of their suggestions on what they've found works best when dealing with responsible internet usage with their kids.

fa1c0n

Hello -

This is an old thread but there are not many relevant results when I search google for this feature. I too would like to track my kids (while I'm setting expectations, having conversation, etc). I follow the Reagan doctrine of "Trust, but verify."

I use OpenDNS and it has been great. I now want to grab the log files from the Actiontec MI424WR and send them to a remote system (or download). I would like to use a mac app to analyze the logs. A popular log viewer is Wall Watcher but it's windoze based.

The goal is to do this from the router because I don't want the workload of managing each device on the network. Plus, kids have BYOD all the time so the router is prefered.

So - any thoughts about:

- Logging to a remote system

- Router based logging (Actiontec)

- Viewing Sites visited by MacAddress or IP Address

- Mac based viewer (option would be Windows)

Much appreciated!

Fa1c0n

mgerbasio

When my kids were young, the Linksys routers had this ability and I used it.

I was clear I was monitoring the connection and every now and again would just mention I saw someone going to a web site; back then the kids shared one PC. Its too bad the routers from 15 years ago did more than anything available now. I don't have a need for it but I'm a strong supporter of watching where your young and teenage children frequent online.

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