Saturday, January 11, 2014

Network News Linkfest

Here is a collection of linkage I’ve collected that falls nicely under networking categorization.

Lots off tutorials, new applications, and best practices.

They’ve been building in here for a while so some topics may be a bit outdated but they were still useful to me, hence posting for posterity’s sake.

In case you are a network sysadmin and have been living under a rock, Microsoft released a new version of its network analysis tool Network Monitor (NetMon). The new tool is called MessageAnalyzer and comes will all kinds of neat bells and whistles.

It may not quickly replace Wireshark (or a few other network packet capture tools) in your toolbox but I used NetMon heavily in the past and it was great for some specific traffic capture conditions. So I’m still eager to learn about the features this new tool offers, which are pretty neat.

Defrag Tools over at Channel 9 has just started some video tutorials on it:

WhoIsConnectedSniffer - new freeware tool from NirSoft to listen to network packets and then lists the detected systems and devices the packet traffic indicates. This is a “passive” scanner rather than an “active” scanner. Pretty cool. A few more details in the NirSoft Blog post New utility that lists computers and devices connected to your network

Remote Desktop Protocol 8.1 Update for Windows 7 SP1 released to web - Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services) Team Blog - Since first collecting this link in November 2013 the page currently says the download was pulled due to quality issues. Still, it’s an interesting read if you are into RDP.

The Physical Side Of Networking (By Tony Fortunato) - LoveMyTool. Great reminder of the need to keep  your network hardware connection points clean and protected. Never forget the physical level!

See below for another reason it’s good practice to check your network for device chatter in unexpected places. (I’m still negotiating with Lavie for purchase approval of either Dualcomm DCSW-1005 or Dualcomm DCGS-2005L network tap for the home…its likely to be either that or a new set of Vera Wang bed sheets depending on the priority list that wins out).

News out of the 2014 CES continues to indicate the electronic industry’s love-affair with making almost everything “networked” despite the lack of obvious benefit it may bring. I’ll spare you all the linkage but this one article by Peter Bright at ArsTechnica sums up it very nicely and is aligned with my current attitude towards all the noise: Smart TVs, smart fridges, smart washing machines? Disaster waiting to happen

SoftPerfect Switch Port Mapper - feature-limited trial/$ - new utility I found recently from SoftPerfect. There are a number of tools that can assist wit network switch port identification, and this tool has a particularly nice interface. Thought I would share though I’ve not personally tried it.

clumsy - free - an utility for simulating broken network for Windows Vista / Windows 7 and above. I know it seems counter-intuitive for a network admin to purposely try to make their network run “worse” but this is a super-clever tool (no installation required) to help test your network/application performance under less-than-ideal conditions. Spotted over at the neat utility notice blog One Thing Well (clumsy)

Important Security Update for D-Link Routers — Krebs on Security. Got a D-link router? Read the post and see if you need to do some patching.

Scanning without Scanning - ISC Diary

Virtual Router Plus - Virtual Router Plus Official Project Site - “Virtual Router Plus turns any Windows 7 and Windows 8 computer into a Wifi Hot Spot using Wireless Hosted Network technology.”  Spotted via LoveMyTools post Virtual Router for Windows Portable Software AP (by Tony Fortunato)

Wireshark 1.10.4 and 1.8.12 are available - ISC Diary

Cheers,

Claus V.

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