Everyone who works on Routers and Switches administering networks needs a toolbox of applications that help them to do their job better.
Getting the answer from the Internet search engines is nearly impossible in a short amount of time. So, I decided to post a list of our favorite tools all in one place. Here they are:
Terminal Programs
- PuTty – a non tabbed favorite. Click Here to go to the download page. Just download and put the executable on your desktop.
- TeraTerm – click here to download
- WinTabber is a great tabbed Console tool if you routinely have more than one console window open at a time. Click here to go to the web page.
- For Ubuntu users, a great tabbed Console tool is Konsole. Use your Synaptic package Manager to search for it and install it.
- Free to try but expensive is SecureCRT.
You will also need a tool to keep your scripts/text files for configs. We think that tabbed editors are the BEST way to go.
- Notepad ++ is free for Windows
- UltraEdit is another great tool, but is not free.
Network Monitoring Tools
Below is a starter list – but if you want a more in depth list look here!
- The best port scanner is NMAP and ZENMAP, and they are free. Look here for more info.
- The best protocol analyzer is Wireshark (formerly Etherreal), and it is free. Get it here.
- A great “man in the middle” tool: Ettercap. Ettercap is a suite for man in the middle attacks on LAN. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks. Can be found here.
- Snort® is an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system (IDS/IPS) developed by Sourcefire. Combining the benefits of signature, protocol, and anomaly-based inspection, Snort is the most widely deployed IDS/IPS technology worldwide. You can download Snort here.
- Netcat is a featured networking utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using the TCP/IP protocol.
It is designed to be a reliable “back-end” tool that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts. At the same time, it is a feature-rich network debugging and exploration tool, since it can create almost any kind of connection you would need and has several interesting built-in capabilities. Get more info and download it here.
Wireless
- Network Stumbler is a free Windows 802.11 (wireless) Sniffer. This tool finds open wireless access points, or “wardriving”, as it is most often referred to. Find it here.
- AirSnort is an 802.11 WEP encryption cracking tool for local area networks. AirSnort operates by passively monitoring transmissions, computing the encryption key when enough packets have been gathered. You can get it here.
Other Tools and Information
- The Sysinternals web site was created in 1996 by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell to host their advanced system utilities and technical information. Whether you’re an IT Pro or a developer, you’ll find Sysinternals utilities to help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications. Click here to go to the web page.
Check out our article on Networking Tools here!
Check out our article on Network Monitoring Tools here.
If you can recommend other tools, please let us know here or under those articles.
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