Set up & Monitoring
Ok. I signed up for this a few weeks ago and got too busy to figure it out because it was asking for alot of router information I did not have.
Today, I had some time so I am back on here and the layout has changed and I am now confused and not very techie so please help.
I have signed up for the free basic home version.
I have set up my network using my network IP address.
I have 5 laptop computers, and 3 cell phones that connect to my home network at any given time.
The purpose of OpenDNS right now is to monitor.
Questions:
1. I have gone through the process of setting up and enabling dynamic IP on the dashboard page. Is that all I have to do? Do I need to do something with my router as the program was asking me for before?
2. Will the program give me just IP addresses or websites visited?
3. How long does it take to begin capturing information?
4. And, finally will it capture information from all of my devices since they are all connected to the same network?
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"The purpose of OpenDNS right now is to monitor."
That is your purpose, not OpenDNS's. Your DNS lookups (and only those) can be logged and displayed as stats though. Please note that web traffic is not necessarily and always related to DNS traffic, and often most of the DNS traffic is not related to web traffic.
To your questions:
- You must configure the OpenDNS resolver (DNS server) addresses either on the router, or on the end devices or on your internal DNS server in order to send your DNS lookups to OpenDNS at all: https://store.opendns.com/start/
- Neither. It will show you the domain names being queried via DNS.
- For the first time (new accounts) it takes 24 hours. Later on it takes typically some 2-3 hours to become visible.
- It will capture information from all devices using OpenDNS. In case you configured the OpenDNS resolver addresses on the router, this is usually from your network as a whole unless some end devices have configured their own DNS servers, or else from those end devices where (only) OpenDNS resolver addresses are configured.
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rotbiltz,
Thanks again! I really appreciate someone involved with a program willing to take time to answer what must sound like silly questions.
It is MY purpose to monitor right now only to get the thing working. Ultimately I want to use the parental controls but have had a hard time getting other parental software programs to work while not limiting my kids totally from sites I consider safe. For awhile one parental software program I had blocked Webkinz!
I will wait a couple of days and see what happens.
Thanks again! I will probably be back! :)
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Ah yes. Wouldn't it be a good idea and learning curve and challenge to get this done by your kids themselves? I bet they do it much better than you unless you're an ICT freak. Eh, btw, that's not a joke! It really works. I'm teacher and ICT expert and know what I'm talking about.
Kids can really be duteous if you give them the chance to be.
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Hello,
I do believe that my question is even sillier than yours. In regards to her #2 question and your #2 answer rotblitz- what do your response mean? I am attempting to test it and see if it is working by going to random websites, and they are not being recorded on the stats on my dashboard. What am I misunderstanding here?
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I do not believe that your issue is related to Q&A#2. It seems you're not collecting stats or not the correct stats.
Execute the command:
nslookup -type=txt debug.opendns.com.
to see if your IP address is correctly registered with OpenDNS. Also, ensure that you have stats and logs enabled at your dashboard.
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