Free networking security diagnostic tools and utilities
Solving real problems with the Network Diagnostic Tool –
“Most network administrators are familiar with freely available network diagnostic tools such as Wireshark and TCPdump. However, many may not realize that the Internet2 consortium has produced several advanced open-source tools that, while designed to monitor and troubleshoot performance issues on high-performance research networks, can be great additions to any networker’s bag of tricks.” – .
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2547026/networking/…
DNSstuff.com – “This site has many DNS and networking tools for network administrators, domain owners, users of DNS hosting services, etc.” Some of them are free. – http://www.dnsstuff.com/.
Sysinternals free TCPView allows the user to identify and locate which applications have open ports on a system. – Sysinternals was an independent organisation but it is now owned by Microsoft.
TCPView – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/tcpview.aspx
AirSnare – a free tool that can be downloaded from many sites. It works on wired and wireless networks monitoring MAC addresses – unique addresses assigned to every network device on a Local Area Network (LAN) that are accessed when a new network device tries to log on to a network. The tool provides notification when it detects a new MAC address tapping into the LAN it is installed on. It can even inform on what the users are doing via the LAN and allows them to be notified that their activities are under observation. Here is a YouTube video on it:
AirSnare Windows WiFi IDS Video [2012] – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAZJNrwzp2A
The following two programs that complement one another are excellent, but the logs they generate would probably not be comprehensible to a networking novice, but would serve an experienced network administrator very well. The user interfaces are also somewhat too complicated. That said, there is nothing to stop a novice from trying them.
GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner (N.S.S.) –
http://www.gfi.com/products-and-solutions/network-security-solutions/gfi-languard
GFI LANguard Security Event Log Monitor (S.E.L.M.) 5 –
http://kbase.gfi.com/showarticle.asp?id=KBID001827
NetStumbler
The first thing you should do in a Victorian house is perform a site survey, which just involves walking around the house with a laptop equipped with a wireless network adapter that is running a free program called NetStumbler from http://www.netstumbler.com/. It shows you how strong a Wi-Fi signal is at any given position, and therefore enables you to locate dead spots. It can also tell you if there are any other wireless networks in the vicinity.
Wi-Fi networks can operate on any one of thirteen channels. If possible, neighbouring networks should use different channels in order to minimise interference between them. If NetStumbler locates any neighbouring networks it should tell you which channels they’re using. Then, all you have to do is visit the applicable neighbours to negotiate which channels you and they should use in order to avoid interference.
The best channels to use are 1, 6, and 11, because they have the least overlap with neighbouring channels.
Excellent, network tweaking tools
The DSLReports.com site provides an excellent, free, connection-tweaking tool called DrTCP. Using it, their online tweak tester, and the information in their online forums, you can adjust the internal Windows settings to fit an ADSL connection optimally. After a computer is set to receive data with exactly the same settings that a particular ADSL Internet Service Provider (ISP) is using to send it, the connection speed should see a marked improvement if it wasn’t optimally set up in the first place. –
http://www.dslreports.com/tools
The impressive tools called TCP/IP Analyzer and TCP/IP Optimizer are available free from http://www.speedguide.net/. Look under Shortcuts down the left-hand side of the page.
10 great free downloads for your network –
“Got a small network, home network, medium-size network — even an enterprise network — and want to get the most out of it? Then I’ve got good news for you: 10 free pieces of software that can make your network easier to use, troubleshoot and maintain. These freebies will help everyone from networking pros to networking newbies and everyone in between.” –