Subj: Software to ‘Interpret’ OpenDNS Stats

[tibike]

Re. the Stats page I’ve been through an emotional progression(!) that probably other novice OpenDNS users have been through:

- Expectation: Whoopee, not only can OpenDNS filter out much of the evil web, it can also tell me where my kids have been.

- Confusion: This stats page makes no sense. What are all these sites? Where are the ones I actually visited?

- Disappointment: It never will make sense, there’s more to web than I thought https://forums.opendns.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=10243

But then my mate tells me that his BT router tells him in plain-top-of-the-page-URL-language what sites everyone who connects to his router has visited.

So now I’m thinking that perhaps there’s some software I can get hold of, and run on my linux PC, that’ll post-process the OpenDNS stats and spew out the plain-top-of-the-page-URLs that have been accessed. Is there any such thing, or is what I'm asking way too much of a long shot?

Thanks – from an IT duffer

[mattwilson9090]

Your expectation was wrong - OpenDNS cannot tell you where your kids have been. It can only tell you what domains a DNS lookup was done for from your network. Those domains could indicate that someone visited a particular website, used an app, that your antivirus software contacted an update server, or even that a webpage had ads on it that required a DNS lookup from another domain.

The stats page does not display sites, it only displays domains that a DNS lookup was done for. Due to the nature of DNS is and how it works it cannot tell you what sites you personally visited, only what domains were looked up by devices on your network.

Your friends very well could have a router that logs all of the internet traffic passing through it, including URL's of websites that were visited, but it would also include the URL's of internet resources that were used for things such as updating software. By the nature of how a router works that is something that they can do, but OpenDNS cannot because it is not monitoring all of your internet activity.

No, you cannot get any software that will take the OpenDNS and tell you what URL's you have visited because it does not record URL's, only domains.

You could however save your current DNS stats (follow the download on the upper right corner of a stats page) and import it into something like Excel and manipulate the data into a format that is easier for you to read.

You could also get the same model router that your friend has, and in addition to the capabilities that OpenDNS offers you, use that router and it's firmware to track and log all of the internet traffic that passes through it.

[rotblitz]

Other threads you may want to look into:
https://support.opendns.com/entries/21691004-opendns-fetchstats
https://support.opendns.com/entries/26513840-Introduction-to-OpenDNS-Reporting

[tibike]

Am I correct in summarising your responses as: I can't post-process the OpenDNS stats to give me the URLs of the sites visited, which is what I really want, although I could buy a new router to do this?

(And also the stats can be downloaded and processed to do something else I don't understand using software I wouldn't understand :) .)

Oh well. Many thanks for taking the time folks.

[mattwilson9090]

There's no surmising about it. You can't "post-process" anything that does not have the data you want in the first place. Being a DNS service OpenDNS does not receive or deal with URL's, it only handles domains that need a lookup.

If you want to track internet activity, including URL's visited, you need a router or similar device or software positioned in your network so that it can monitor all of that traffic. That is not what OpenDNS does, it is a DNS provider that does very effective domain name filtering, and for paid versions has some very powerful additional security tools.

Like I said, if you want to monitor all of your internet activity in the manner that your friend does, get the same model of router as him.

Also, as I said before, you can download the stats that OpenDNS does retain and view them in software such as Excel. If you don't understand such basic tasks as clicking on a link to download a file, or opening a file in Excel I suggest that you would be better served by learning how to do those things right now than worrying about tracking everyone's internet activity since by your own words you probably wouldn't understand how to view or manipulate that data as well. It's not a terribly difficult thing to do, but does require some basic knowledge of computers and the internet in order to use, manipulate, and understand what is being presented to you.