rocknbil,

Have you considered one of the child surfing programs (not sure if I can mention the name of one), but that have parental controls to block URL’s and monitors surfing habits? I know there are free ones out there.

Not yet, because I don't know exactly what sites she's browsing. This is why I need to log. She's 17, so it's not really a matter of content.

I used the content advisor to block youTube. Fortunately she hasn't figured out the wonders of FireFox yet.

I'm terribly inexperienced in this, with my daughter I said "don't do it" and she wouldn't. Unfortunately, my stepdaughter has two awful weaknesses: watching TV/video and denying everything when caught. :-)

We could just pull her plug, but then I'd be the household bad guy. I just need to somehow stop the video, or limit her usage, or . . . something! You know teens, trying to explain this is how I make money to pay for her privilege is just "blah blah lecture lecture blah blah . . . . "

I've not used it, but if you're familiar with Linux then have a look at [ipcop.org...] and set up a machine to operate as a router with bandwidth limiting for her machine. Or depending on your router, then you may be able to do this already anyway. You certainly need at least to restrict the ports that can be used to block the most common P2P software which can chew through lots of bandwidth.

I assume the problem is not specifically what is being downloaded, but the amount. So if you could limit her connection to, say, 100Mb a day, then she can watch bad Youtube promo vids as much as she likes - but only up to her limit.

Thanks, looking at that now (veeeeeeerrrrryyy slowly) but the problem is I don't think we have room here to set up another station. :-( It's a LinkSys 4-port, all ports full, I did look around in settings and the logging is almost as bad as my sattelite's usage page. :-)

You can get a 4 or 5 port switch or hub to expand your connections. They run about $25-30 and can be chained to expand the number of ports. I just saw a d-link for $10 at a well-known internet-based hardware place.
I only know enough Linux to get myself really exasperated, but I believe the Linux box would go between your current router and the stations. You'd have current router -> Linux box -> 4 port switch -> stations

Your router may already have this capability. If not, I can suggest a couple of alternatives that certainly would.

I'm afraid I'm pretty unfamiliar with popular routers, as I use a Netscreen firewall. However, I have to assume that Linksys, Dlink, etc. have at least some similar capabilities.

One feature of the Netscreens is that they can do extensive logging. Logging can be done internally (and viewed with a web browser) or sent to a logging facility (e.g. syslog process) on one of your computers. If you don't have a Linux machine - no worry - you can easily get a free syslog program for Windows.

Now, this is not specifically logging "downloads". It just logs connections. But you could easily write, say, a little Perl or Ruby script to go through the log and look for connections that transferred more than a certain number of bytes.

What if your router doesn't do this? Two possibilities:

- Older Netscreen and similar devices can probably be purchased on eBay, etc. for little money. I know I have a few sitting around that I haven't bothered to list, because I doubt they are worth much...

- The Linksys WRT54GL router that runs Linux. Goes for about $70. Linksys changed the OS on the original WRT54G to non-Linux, but there was such an outcry by users that they brought back the Linux version with the GL suffix.

Basically, what this amounts to is a very inexpensive, small, Linux box with several Ethernet interfaces. There's quite a user community that has developed alternative Linux images to load into this router. Some of the applications have nothing to do with routing and turn it into something completely different - for example, a dedicated VOIP PBX, or even a media server.

Of interest to you, however, are a number of projects that have ported popular Linux firewalls to the router. The Wikipedia article has a good list of available firmware for starters:

[en.wikipedia.org...]