Hi, I've been trying to get SmartMontor working but have had some problems - So, i've trawled through the various posts on here and found plenty of other people having issues with SmartMontior.....

So my question is quite simple, has anyone ever got it to work?

Over time, I've tried numerous version of SmartMonitor (2.4.1 being the latest) and different operating sysems (Windows XP, Linux (32 bit Ubuntu 10.04) and even Windows 7 (both 32 and 64bit) ) - by my problem is that traffic is never logged & reported in SmartMontitor.

Port mirroring is correctly configured as if I run wireshark on the PC's i can capture traffic no problem.

I've all but given up on smartmontor - Cant anyone suggest an alternative product which will do the same job?

It works pretty well in my experience? The 2830's newer firmwares (I think 3.3.7 onwards, definitely 3.6.3) also improve the port mirroring so you only need to use one LAN connection for both the authentication for smartmonitor / accessing the network and internet and the port mirroring.
Usually the issue with it allowing access to smartmonitor but not capturing would be down to the mirror port setup - make sure it's monitoring the right LAN card. That or the Smartmonitor.exe service isn't running - that was a problem with 2.4 for me, it's fixed with 2.4.1 afaik
Also I've seen the database get screwed up so it doesn't show reports properly, maybe try a clean install?

OK, thanks for the feedback. It's good to know someone has got it to work, so i will attempt it again.

I'm using firmware 3.6.3, but I do have 3 VLANs setup and in use - (one on each port 1,2,3) with mirroring enabled on port 4. Maybe the vlans are causing my problems...d

Can I ask what OS you used when you had it working? Also for my previous attempt, the PC's had 2 NIC's, one connected to the mirror port and one for accessing the web admin interface - i will try with only 1 NIC.

Cheers,
R

yep the vlans would be the problem
Smartmonitor is a little weird and will only monitor IPs in the subnet the monitor port card is set up with, this guide shows how to get around it
http://www.draytek.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1563
I have it running on a junk xp home machine right now, I've used it with win 7 64bit though as well.
Another thing to consider is that it can't monitor wireless if you're using the router's internal wireless, that traffic doesn't go to the mirror port (cos of how the wireless is implemented) you'd need to use an additional AP.

Thanks for the tip and link - I guess this could be what is causing the issue becuase as I stated in my original post, running wireshark or similar shows the monitor port to be working as expected : packets and traffic can be seen.

I'm back at work after the festive break, so I will try your suggestion in the next day or so. I will report back with my finiding for the benifit of other forumn users who maybe encountering similar problem.

Hmm! more possible good news, they just released 2.4.2 which adds official support for Win7
ftp://ftp.draytek.com/Smart%20Monitor/Windows/v2.4.2/

edit: lol the installer's in chinese, I'll give it a go to see if it breaks much.

edit2: ok it's still in english and the update procedure is pretty bad, probably best to uninstall first then reinstall - it doesn't keep the DB though so now I have to re-enter all the IP names