Tools for
Network Administrators - Download Links
1.) Nagios
XI
Nagios is a powerful network monitoring tool that helps you to ensure
that your critical systems, applications and services are always up and
running. It provides features such as alerting, event handling and reporting.
The Nagios Core is the heart of the application that contains the core
monitoring engine and a basic web UI. On top of the Nagios Core, you are able
to implement plugins that will allow you to monitor services, applications, and
metrics, a chosen frontend as well as add-ons for data visualisation, graphs,
load distribution, and MySQL database support, amongst others.
Tip: If you want to try out Nagios without needing to
install and configure it from scratch, download Nagios XI and enable the free
version. Nagios XI is the pre-configured enterprise class version built upon
Nagios Core and is backed by a commercial company that offers support and
additional features such as more plugins and advanced reporting.
Note: The free version of Nagios XI is ideal
for smaller environments and will monitor up to seven nodes.
Once you’ve installed and configured Nagios, launch the Web UI and begin
to configure host groups and service groups. Once Nagios has had some time to
monitor the status of the specified hosts and services, it can start to paint a
picture of what the health of your systems looks like.
2.) Capsa Free
Capsa Free is a network analyzer that allows you to monitor network
traffic, troubleshoot network issues and analyze packets. Features include
support for over 300 network protocols (including the ability to create and
customize protocols), MSN and Yahoo Messenger filters, email monitor and
auto-save, and customizable reports and dashboards.
When you launch Capsa, choose the adapter you want it to bind to and
click “Start” to initiate the capture process. Use the tabs in the main window
to view the dashboard, a summary of the traffic statistics, the TCP/UDP
conversations, as well as packet analysis.
3.)
OpenNMS
OpenNMS is an open source enterprise grade network management
application that offers automated discovery, event and notification management,
performance measurement, and service assurance features. OpenNMS includes a
client app for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch for on-the-go access, giving you
the ability to view outages, nodes, alarms and add an interface to monitor.
Once you successfully login to the OpenNMS web UI, use the dashboard to
get a quick ‘snapshot view’ of any outages, alarms or notifications. You can
drill down and get more information about any of these sections from the Status
drop down menu. The Reports section allows you to generate reports to send by
e-mail or download as a PDF.
6. Zabbix
Zabbix
is an open source monitoring tool. It is popular for its easy-to-use and
pleasing Web GUI that is fully configurable. Zabbix focuses on monitoring and
trending functionality. This software is frequently used for monitoring servers
and network hardware. One of the highlights of Zabbix is that it can predict
trends in your traffic. Zabbix can forecast future behavior based on historical
data.
Since it is open source, it has
an active user community spread around the world and good documentation. Zabbix
gives the freedom to use the open-source solution without vendor lock-ins
(including all components).
Zabbix is powerful for SMB
networks below 1,000 nodes. Over that, the software can get slower and its
performance decreased. Another disadvantage is that it doesn’t include
real-time tests and reports.
More Information and Official Website:
Download Link:
5.) WirelessNetView
WirelessNetView is a lightweight utility (available as a standalone
executable or installation package) that monitors the activity of reachable
wireless networks and displays information related to them, such as SSID,
Signal Quality, MAC Address, Channel Number, Cipher Algorithm, etc.
As soon as you execute WirelessNetView, it automatically populates a
list of all reachable Wi-Fi networks in the area and displays information
relevant to them (all columns are enabled by default).
6.) WireShark - Download
When you launch Wireshark, choose which interface you want to bind to
and click the green shark fin icon to get going. Packets will immediately start
to be captured. Once you’ve collected what you need, you can export the data to
a file for analysis in another application or use the in-built filter to drill
down and analyze the captured packets at a deeper level from within Wireshark
itself.
7.) Advanced IP Scanner- Google Drive
