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gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

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vryni
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gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#1 Post by vryni »

Can you suggest a free GUI software tool

for web traffic monitoring on a debian 11

home computer for a novice user


Any other simple gui tools i can use to monitor

other aspects of pc security and functioning ?

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#2 Post by sunrat »

What do you want to monitor?
Every packet that passes through? - Wireshark, not really for beginners though.
Just the amount of data? vnstat is a console tool but can generate an image of cumulative traffic with vnstati - https://www.tecmint.com/install-vnstat- ... k-traffic/

KDE Plasma has simple monitor widgets you can add, probably other DEs have similar.

Or Conky can show your network traffic for the current session. Also takes a bit to set up. This is my network section in Conky:

Code: Select all

$alignc${color #00ff2a}IP Address:$color${addr enp4s0}
$alignc${color #00ff2a}Down:$color${downspeed enp4s0}/s${color #00ff2a}   Up:$color${upspeed enp4s0}/s
$alignc${color #00ff2a}Total   Down:$color${totaldown enp4s0}${color #00ff2a}   Up:$color${totalup enp4s0}
$alignc${color black}${downspeedgraph enp4s0 30,200 ffffff 666666} ${color black}${upspeedgraph enp4s0 30, 200 666666 ffffff}
which looks like this:
conky-network.png
conky-network.png (32.53 KiB) Viewed 6134 times
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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#3 Post by Marie SWE »

vryni wrote: 2021-12-11 12:35 Can you suggest a free GUI software tool

for web traffic monitoring on a debian 11

home computer for a novice user


Any other simple gui tools i can use to monitor

other aspects of pc security and functioning ?
Hi :)
Unfortunately, there is no good GUI program out there to monitor your computer's internal traffic, so you can see which program/process sends the smallest byte to specific ip address.
I have been looking for GUI programs that monitor computer activity and traffic in the same way that the resource monitor can do in windows, but it does not exist yet.
Conky can do a lot. :) but unfortunately not all.
The command sudo watch -n 0,5 "lsof -n | grep TCP" captures a lot, but it gets messy to read. To get it in a log file you have to type sudo watch -n 0,5 "lsof -n | grep TCP" >> watch-log.txt
Wireshark is a good program that captures the smallest bit. :D But you can not see which program or process is sending the data. :|
I have also searched among paid software and it is only for windows that they have developed internal monitoring software that monitors the computer's file system activity, network activity and good graphical advanced firewalls. I have a thread in here where I searched for a good firewall and internal monitoring of the computer system without success.
Look in my thread if you find something interesting. viewtopic.php?f=30&t=149219
EDIT: And if you want to see the hard disk activity, you can use the command sudo iotop -d 2 -P

Most people think that Linux is so secure that you do not need to monitor the activity of your computer, or need a firewall that can be easily configured via GUI to monitor outgoing traffic and set rules on outgoing traffic for specific programs if you have a router with a firewall or a hardware firewall.

I think it will come in the future, the more people who start to feel the need for it. But right now, there is nothing more than conky wirechark that is graphic.
I will keep an eye on this thread if anyone has a good tip, as I am looking for it as well.
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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#4 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

Here are two options:

1. Install Windows and Avast! anti-virus which has the excellent Web Shield which scans web sites you visit for malicious code.

2. Install Debian, leave your Windows baggage at the door, relax and enjoy your shoes.

I chose No. 2 option 13 years ago.

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#5 Post by Marie SWE »

FreewheelinFrank wrote: 2021-12-11 17:28 Here are two options:

1. Install Windows and Avast! anti-virus which has the excellent Web Shield which scans web sites you visit for malicious code.

2. Install Debian, leave your Windows baggage at the door, relax and enjoy your shoes.

I chose No. 2 option 13 years ago.
Really???? What was this post good for?
Why make things complicated in life, if you can make it easier for yourself... Do it. ;o)
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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#6 Post by oswaldkelso »

I just built etherape I love/hate watching all those connections when I fire up a browser

It's in the repos

https://etherape.sourceforge.io/

#typo
Last edited by oswaldkelso on 2021-12-11 23:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#7 Post by stevepusser »

I'd say that the OP is far too vague about what they are asking for. If you want the equivalent of a tool on another OS, tell us its name! Or at least a more detailed description of your needs.
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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#8 Post by Segfault »

And what kind of GUI, will ncurses do?

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#9 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

Where is my security centre? Where is my firewall? How can I block outgoing connections until I allow them? How can I know which process is connecting to which IP address? Where's my anti-virus? How can I monitor, block or allow which processes modify files?

This is your Windows baggage. These things do not exist or are not possible for a novice user. But then you are not going to be downloading a freeware tool and finding it's installed something that's downloading endless ads and diverting your web searches, then looking for where it's hiding and which servers it's contacting and if it's really malicious what system files it's modified or what other malware it's downloaded from where and what backdoors it's installed.

When you move to Linux you might feel like you're missing a limb, but really you're not. All this stuff was necessary back when MS security was really dire (log in as administrator, no firewall, direct connection to the internet if you had a USB modem, open ports listening for commands, any computer connected to the internet with default settings compromised within hours). It's still necessary if you download and install stuff from random web sites in Windows because of the ecosystem - freeware is paid for by adware and adware doesn't care if the ads they serve you up with feed you malware.

Yes if you're a server admin, you'd better be on top of what's running on your system and what and who can connect from and to where, but for a "normal" user, you are looking for things that don't exist because they are not needed, and nobody is going to make money convincing you that you need them and selling them to you.

This doesn't mean you don't need to think about security, just learn about the things you do need to do in Linux.

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#10 Post by Bulkley »

FreewheelinFrank wrote: 2021-12-12 16:00This doesn't mean you don't need to think about security, just learn about the things you do need to do in Linux.
+1.

The most secure way to use the Internet is to pull the plug; stay off line. That's not practical. The challenge is to find your risk level, to become Net smart so to speak. Use browser add ons such as uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere. Set the browser to dump history and cookies, etc. Set your modem/router firewall to most secure. This will get you a long way.

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#11 Post by arochester »

Totally OTT, over the top, is Lynis, available from Repository.
Lynis is an auditing tool for hardening GNU/Linux and Unix based systems.
It scans the system configuration and creates an overview of system information
and security issues usable by professional auditors.
It can assist in automated audits.

Lynis can be used in addition to other software, like security
scanners, system benchmarking and fine-tuning tools.

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#12 Post by Bulkley »

Lynis

Lynis is CLI, not GUI. However, it is easy to install and easy to use.

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#13 Post by wireless »

Hello,

I am using Pi-Hole on my portion of the network. I'm using a wireless USB chip to create a wireless hotspot from the same device recieving the wireless signal. I'm only able to do this with Windows 10, and in mere SECONDS becuase it's just click here and there, done

Edit: Addition: Look into the web browser addon "NoScript" in almost any browser, Google Chrome (just kidding, don't ever use it, it's hurting the structure of the Internet, or more specifically website design), Mozilla Firefox has it, and it's great at helping shape our web for the better, unlike an advertising company.

NoScript blocks all non-sense, well about 98%_of it from any and every webpage you visit. You will un-doubtably need to "temporarily trust" or perm. trust the name of the website for EVERYTHING you go to, because more often than not, keeping the javascript blocked on the main website prevents you from even loading an article! It's 10000000000% worth it though once you see how much crap would be loaded otherwise.

Some online market places I've been to have over 18 websites other than the one you visited, that it wants to get to. Most of the time, just one or two is needed because the website is hosted somewhere else. The other 16+ connections are tracking metrics, and avertising companies that want to follow you. And anytime other websites have those same websites built in, well I'll ler you figure out the rest. The web is a dark, ugly place now, but with so many possibilities, too many possibilities. End of addtiom.

So, in Virtualbox running on the Windows 10 machine, I have a Debian installation. It's the recommended / supoorted system and it's very light using a simple desktop like xfce, I could even use fluxbox for even more lightness but I don't see the point.

Speaking of things running in background, check Startup Applications, I have all but one turned off for networking, not evem sure if I need that either.

Back to Pi-Hole it is a Domain Name Server or System not sure, quite literally the phone-book of the internet. You type duckduckgo into the top bar but really it goex to an Internet Protocol Address of the following:

52.149.246.39

So tou know the name but the number is hard for our brains to remember.

So it is almost like WireShark which lets you see all of the traffic on your network. Pi-Hole lets you block the domain (or website name) for anything and everything you want to block. I think it helps save energy, and now I understand with similar network tools on my phone, why cellular internet drains the battery so heavily. It's definitely NOT idle, constant connections etc, now blocked for good, saving not only my own battery power but the electricity needed for all that junk.

Let me know if you want to learn more about this type of topic, now that I'm into Pi-Hole (should have done this eight years ago! I thought it only blocked ads and just didn't look into it enough, wow was I so far off!

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#14 Post by kedaha »

Hi,
If you use Debian's firefox-esr, you can use Lightbeam:
For further details:

Code: Select all

$ apt info webext-lightbeam

Code: Select all

# apt install webext-lightbeam
Edit Settings
Go to Extensions and enable Lightbeam and it'll appear in the toolbar.
DebianStable

Code: Select all

$ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on debian!  rms would be proud.

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Re: gui tool for monitoring web traffic & security

#15 Post by panpan »

Do you mean something like this? http://www.wifiguard.cz/

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