The focus of this category, network utilities, are software utilities used to analyze and configure various aspects of computer networks.
Network utilities first appeared in the Unix operating system, but they can be found in nearly every operating system today and used for everything from troubleshooting a connection to looking up information. Common network utilities include dig, finger, host, ifconfig, ipconfig, lookup, netsh, netstat, nslookup, ping, spray, tracepath, traceroute, tracert, vnStat, whois, and various port scanners.
Some network configuration utilities are used to display and diagnose networks. These include iproute2 for the Linux OS, ifconfig for Unix, ipconfig for Windows, and route, which displays an IP routing table.
These are just a few. There are several others, particularly within the several Linix distributions.
Among the more common network utilities, the ipconfig command is used on Windows, while Linux, macOS, and Unix-like machines use ifconfig, although they serve the same purpose. These commands are used to configure a network's interfaces and view information about them. On Windows, the ipconfig/all command will allow the user to view all of his configured network interfaces, their IP addresses, DNS servers, and other information. The ipconfig/flushdns command can be used to flush the DNS cache, forcing Windows to get new addresses from its DNS servers each time you contact a new hostname. Other uses for ipconfig can force the computer to release its IP address and get a new one from its DHCP server.
The nslookup command will look up the IP addresses associated with a domain name. As an example, nslookup avivadirectory.com will show the IP address of the Aviva Directory's server. The nslookup command can also be used to perform a reverse lookup, determining the domain name associated with an IP address.
The ping command sends ICMP echo request packets to a destination, such as a domain name or IP address. These packets request a reply from the remote destination. If configured to reply, the remote destination will respond with packets of its own. In this way, the user can see how long the round trip is between the user's computer and the destination site. A "timed out" message will be returned if packet loss is occurring, and an error message if the computer is unable to communicate with the remote host. Ping is used in troubleshooting Internet connection problems, although not all servers are configured to reply to pings.
The traceroute, tracert, or tracepath commands are similar to ping, except that they yield information about the path that a packet takes. Like ping, traceroute sends a packet to a destination domain or IP address, but it asks each Internet router along the way to reply when it passes the packet, showing the path that packets take between the user's location and the destination. When a user is unable to communicate with a server, traceroute can show where the problem is occurring.
The whois command looks up the registration record associated with a domain name, revealing information about who registered and owns a domain name, along with contact information.
Some of these utilities are not installed with the operating system itself but can be downloaded from other sources. Whether included with the OS or obtainable from a third-party source, the focus of this category is on network utilities.
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Argus processes packet data and generates summary network flow data, and can be used to obtain information about packets, such as how many hosts are talking, who is talking to whom, how often, is one address sending all the traffic, and are they doing something bad? Argus is supplied as source code, so it needs to be compiled and installed onto any ported system, which includes all Linux implementations and most Unix systems, including Solaris. Documentation is available.
https://www.openargus.org/
Based in Iceland, EMCO is a software development company that specializes in network management applications used for the automation of remote administration, network audit, remote software deployment, network monitoring, permissions audit, and power management tasks, including commercial products and freeware utilities for system management and network administration. Its products include Ping Monitor, Permissions Audit, and Network Software Scanner.
https://emcosoftware.com/
Based in Illinois, Ezic is a payment processing company, offering a few software utilities under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Included is mod_dns, an Apache module that provides configurable hostname lookups; rtf2ps, a command-line tool to render an RTF file in Postscript; rewrite, a tool to read a file, feeding its contents through a shell command or pipelines, then reading the output and writing it back to the file; and flog, a file logger programs that reads input from STDIN.
http://oss.ezic.com/
Positioned as an independent source of news, analysis, and reviews of the IT network management space, the site offers reviews, ratings, and details about software utilities and applications for the monitoring of networks, bandwidth, server, and applications, as well as the management, if IP addresses, configuration, and patches, plus remote support tools, storage monitoring, virtualization monitoring, log and event management, help-desk management, and network mapping.
https://www.networkmanagementsoftware.com/
Created by Fausto Ristagno, and available from the Apple App Store for the iPhone and iPad, Network Utility Pro supports iOS 8’s Widget. The utility allows the user to quickly find information about a network, such as internal and external IP, network name, MAC address, gateway address, subnet mask, and DNS addresses, as well as the ability to ping a domain, query a Whois server, use the NSLookup function to discover information about it, and other functions.
https://doublerew.net/ios/network-utility/
Available under the terms of a Modified General Public License, Nmap (Network Mapper) is a free and open-source network scanner used to discover hosts and services on a computer network by sending packets and analyzing the responses. Originally developed for Linux, it has since been ported to BSD, macOS, and Windows platforms. An introduction, reference guide, installation guide, and other documentation is set forth, along with development notes and other resources.
https://nmap.org/
Available under the MIT License, PuTTY is a free and open-source SSH and Telnet client, and implementation of SSH and Telnet for Windows and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connections, and can also connect to a serial port. Originally created for the Windows OS, it has since been ported to classic Mac OS and macOS. It may be downloaded from the site.
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
RabbIT is a web proxy that speeds up web surfing over slow links by compressing text pages and images, removing advertising and background images, and caching filtered pages and images. Designed as an easy and powerful configuration, it is written in Java, modular, and easily extended, with complete HTTP/1.1 compliance. Licensed under the BSD license, it may be downloaded from the site, which includes development notes, a FAQ, and other information.
http://www.khelekore.org/rabbit/
Java-based, Red-Piranha can be run on almost any operating system platform, including Linux/Unix, Mac, and Windows. The open-source search system is designed to be able to learn what the user is looking for, and may be used as a personal desktop search engine, and Intranet search engine, to provide search facilities on a website, as a P2P search engine, part of a development project, or several other purposes, many of which are outlined here, along with a download link.
http://red-piranha.sourceforge.net/
Based in Australia, SoftPerfect is a software development company that specializes in producing network management applications for individuals and businesses, offering software products for a range of operating systems and user requirements, including the SoftPerfect Network Scanner, RAM Disk, NetWorx, NetMaster, WiFi Guard, Switch Port Mapper, Connection Emulator, Bandwidth Manager, Print Inspector, and Cache Relocator, which of which are available online.
https://www.softperfect.com/
Available in Basic and Pro commercial versions, Synergy is a software application designed to allow users to share a keyboard and mouse between multiple computers, generally used in situations where several PCs are used together, each with their own monitor, but to be controlled by one user, so that the user needs only one keyboard and one mouse to control however many computers. Available in Linux, macOS, Raspberry Pi, and Windows editions, Synergy works over a LAN.
https://symless.com/synergy
Developed in Germany, TinkerTool is a freeware application for macOS that allows for customization of the macOS system by exposing hidden preferences to a graphical user interface. The application gives users access to hidden system and application preferences built into the macOS, but not integrated into its GUI preferences menus. While Mac users can access these apps through the Terminal, TinkerTools provides a GUI similar to System Preferences.
http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html
Available under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, TinyRadius is a Java Radius library designed to send and receive Radius packets of all types, including access-request, access-accept, access-reject, access-challenge, accounting-request, accounting-response, and others, including sending and receiving Radius packets with vendor-specific attributes. The package comes with small sample applications demonstrating its integration as a Radius server and client.
http://tinyradius.sourceforge.net/
Hosted on SourceForge and released into the public domain, the Windows GUI Ping Utility is a graphical ping utility for the Microsoft Windows platform. Written in C#, the application allows the user to log and graph Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) responses from multiple hosts. Included is a C# class library for ICMP and ping that can be used in programs developed by the user. Project samples are displayed, and the application’s source code is available.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pingutil/
