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I would like to setup a monitor of some kind on my laptop to track/log websites that have been visited on my home network. I have a Netgear AC1450 router that is only accessed by wifi, nobody connects by ethernet. I would like to know what sites are visited, not who is using the network. I know there are a few obstacles to overcome such as browsing incognito, SSL (etc), and being able to actually interpret the data received.

I tried openDNS and found that it was not providing me with useful information, so I shut it down. The few domains that openDNS produced didn't lead me to any websites and it was hardly gathering any domain requests.

I know there are a lot of forums out there discussing this topic, quite a bit of it is several years old. Is it possible to simply use Wireshark, or a close relative, to monitor all the devices with incoming/outgoing wifi network traffic and produce some useful data? Is there something I can do log traffic within my network, instead of using an outside service like openDNS?

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  • It would be helpful to know why OpenDNS did not work for you
    – schroeder ♦
    Oct 6, 2016 at 7:00
  • I updated my post a bit. To be honest, it's been quite a while since I last used openDNS, but I distinctly remember it having several limitations that led me cancelling it. I believe it had something to do with incognito/private browsing...can't be certain though.
    – wellington
    Oct 6, 2016 at 7:13
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    I agree with @schroeder, you need to work out OpenDNS - likely you have a dynamic IP address and need to deal with that. Any alternative requires you set up a proxy of some kind to track site usage. If your router can't do that, you would have to set up an additional machine & route everything through it.
    – Julian Knight
    Oct 6, 2016 at 7:21
  • For home use, OpenDNS will tend to be your best bet. There are other options here: security.stackexchange.com/questions/60618/…
    – schroeder ♦
    Oct 6, 2016 at 7:26
  • I have an extra mac laptop that i could use to route everything through. Is this what is considered a man-in-the-middle attack? How would I go about setting up my macbook to serve as a proxy?
    – wellington
    Oct 6, 2016 at 7:35

1 Answer 1

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The Netgear AC1450 router is capable of logging exactly the information you want. This has nothing to do with SSL/TLS, browser incognito modes, etc. Just have a look at the manual, p. 80.

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