Tech Guy

2006-11-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

"The OS Wars - An Un-Biased review by a slightly above average computer user!"
No comments yet. - Hide Original Post

Over the last two weeks or so I have been spreading myself across multiple operating systems trying to find one that does what I want and performs reasonably well while doing it. My test machine is an IBM ThinkPad R52 equipped with:

1.60Ghz Intel Pentium M processor512MB DDR2 PC4200 Ram40Gb hard driveCD-RW/DVDIntel 915GM Integrated 64mb (shared) graphics (that oddly enough supports Aero)External 21" Sony Trinitron (Dell) MonitorExternal 14-in-1 USB2.0 Card ReaderLexmark Z605 Color Ink-Jet PrinterVisioneer OneTouch 8600 Scanner (Connected via USB)Creative Webcam NotebookExternal 120GB Maxtor Hard Drive (internal drive in an external enclosure)External Wireless Logitech Cordless Click! MouseExternal Water Proof (Washable) Flexible USB Keyboard (got tired of sticky keys)During this testing phase I have tried the following Operating Systems:

Windows XP Pro SP2 (What was originally on this laptop and is currently being used)Ubuntu 5.03 and 6.06 (Breezy Badger and Dapper Drake - Gotta love those code names)PCLinuxOS 0.93a (technically still in alpha)Windows Vista Ultimate (The one that will retail for $499 for the full version) Beta 2 & RC1ReactOS 0.3 - Windows XP Like CloneBelow I will break down my experiences, pros and cons I noticed with each.

Ubuntu 5.03 and 6.06 - The Funky Animals as I like to call them

Ubuntu is by far a very stable and overall awesome operating system. I would highly recommend it for any server or workstation environment. The installation of both was easy enough that a novice computer user could pull it off and the system is very stable once installed and configured.

The Pros
Extremely Easy to Install (Especially 6.06)LiveCD (6.06 Only) that lets you boot almost any computer with ease and do just about anything without ever installing an OSSupport for a vast majority of hardware (6.06 even has built in support for almost all Wireless WiFi adapters now - both my internal Intel chipset and several external USB WiFi adapters I tried worked flawlessly (after a reboot cause I didn't know how to install them so I had to reboot and let the system detect them automatically which it did every time)Virtually unlimited repositories of FREE (as in beer) software that requires like 3 clicks to install - everytimeEnourmous community of users that are friendly, helpful and very knowledgeable The Cons
Could not get any of my printers (the Lexmark Z605 or a Lexmark AIO) to work - Lexmark Z605 worked the first time but never againAlmost no scanners are supported - Niether of my scanners Visioneer 8600 and a 5600 would work, nor would the scanner on my Lexmark AIOMy webcam (Creative Webcam Notebook) installed automatically but was not useable by almost all applications that supported webcams or importing (like from a camera/scanner)Overall I really like Ubuntu and have several stacks of their disks (which they will mail you stacks of for FREE (as in better than beer). I should also point out that I knew going in I would suffer these cons, but thought I would try it anyway. Ubuntu has the largest selection of supported hardware of any of the FOSS OS's out there (with exception maybe going to Debian based FOSS OS's like PCLinuxOS). I would recommend anyone looking for a good, fast, stable and clean OS to check the Ubuntu Hardware Compatibility List and see if your hardware/peripherals will work.....if so and you are moderately computer literate this would probably be your best choice.

PCLinuxOS 0.93a (technically still in alpha)

First off let me say that I have used/tried thousands of Alpha's and Beta's over the years and this is not only the best I have ever seen, it beats the hell out of most RTM or FINAL code out there. Furthermore, the alpha is a slight misconception as the OS is based on Debian Stable (i.e.-final) code and uses the latest Debian Linux Kernels.....it is only labeled alpha cause the developers are freaking perfectionists and it truely shows in this OS. Of all the OS's I tried this is by far my Favorite.

Pros
The most stable OS I have ever used and probably the most stable FOSS or Commercial software in existence (or at least I think so)LiveCD that lets you boot the computer from CD and install to hard drive when you wantThe easiest OS installation I have ever seen.....it literally asked me like 3 things - where to install, whether to erase entire drive or use free space or repartition and which bootloader to use (and where to install it) - I chose the repartitioning which added 1 more question
Extremely Secure, Reliable and multi-tasks like its no ones businessMassive Software Library that contains all FREE (as in better than beer) softwareCustomized version of KDE 3.5 (the default GUI) that is for more visually stunning than XP but not quite OSX or VISTA - yet!Almost completely configurable using GUI applications that are built-inExcellent Software selection built-in that will satisfy the vast majority of computer users right out of the boxAutomatic Updates of all software, operating systems, etc. (with no Activation, Genuine Advantage Checks, etc.) Cons
Slow to recieve new software or updates into repositories - this should almost be listed as a con....the reason is because the developers are perfectionists and nothing makes its way into the repository until it has been recompiled and tested on PCLOS.Slightly buggy Software installations - whether you are using the Synaptics Package Manger or apt-get from the command line I frequently ran into dependency problems where software refused to install because the dependencies could not be located or could not be installed (in which case it refused to tell me why they couldn't be installed).....I should not I installed over 1,000 programs and only about 10-15 did I have this problemRuns slower than Ubuntu but faster than XP/Vista - I was actually suprised that the modified Glass-like theme with transparancies and overlays was still faster than XPBuggy WiFi - it supported every WiFi I threw at it and even installed them automatically without requiring a reboot - but for the life of me (and I spent two days trying) I could not get WEP or WPA encryption to workLexmark Z605 printer worked the first attempt and never again - spent about 4 hours uninstalling, reinstalling, recompiling, debugging, etc....it just wouldn't workCreative Webcam Notebook worked in more applications than in Ubuntu but it still wouldn't work in all of them that it should - never could find a reason all though I didn't spend to much trying as it worked in my Kopete Instant Messenger after a little coaxingThis is my favorite even though it has more cons than Ubuntu because it was pretty, it was stable, it was painlessly easy to install Wine and get Firefox, Flash, Shockwave, Quicktime working (all XP versions) and I even got Internet Explorer 6 to work under wine....With a little coaxing and compiling I even got qemu (a virtual machine like Virtual PC, PearPC, etc.) and kqemu (an accellerator that integrates in the kernel and creates a virtual machine for faster performance) working with WindowsXP Sp2 and all my Windows software working inside of PCLOS.....Could see, use both desktops simultaneously, surf the web in both, etc. It is also possible (although not always easy) to install non-Debian/PCLOS packages from binary sources or rpm's (which I installed at least 10 of both with relative ease once I figured out how). I even successfully re-compiled the default i386 kernel (and integrated the kqemu in at the same time) to a i686 kernel which damn near doubled the speed and performance of both the computer and the qemu virtuallized WindowsXP I was using.

Windows Vista Ultimate Beta 2 & RC1

These are by far the easiest Microsoft OS installations I have ever, ever done! In total I think I was asked like 5 questions (not counting the first one where it asks something about Install or Boot to Hard Drive - or something like that). The installation was considerably faster than XP's even though it installed several GIGS. I should point out that my machine is at the low end of the recommended specifications for running VISTA Ultimate (or any of the versions with AERO). To be fair I am not going to point out the bugs (and there were more than a few) because this definitely still a beta (the Preview - RC1 - or what ever you wanna call it) is also still a Beta and the OS points that out numerous times - literally.

Pros
Extremely easy to installVery appealing eye-candy (AERO)Simplified Everything - and I mean Everything - there are tools and controls out the yenyangBuilt in support for Tablet PC and Media Center hardware - in the same OS - who'd a thunk Microsoft would have done that - NOT ME FOR SURE!!!!Built in support for more hardware than any OS in history (at least on this planet) including something called iSCSI - what ever the heck that isIncreased security - actually borders on too much - at least when your trying to install all your hardware and softwareSupport for performing administrative tasks while logged in as a regular user - it prompts you to provide temporary administrative credentials similarly to linuxImproved (but still buggy) AutoRun/Autoplay functionality that lets you choose multiple options - you can even add your own options nowBuilt in software for: importing/editing/printing photosburning cd/dvd/blueray/hd disks - integrated into explorer with menu on the toolbarnew games, utilities, control panel applets, etc - everything you can think of is configurable now and I do mean everything - I reconfigured so much it would take a book write it all downSupport (I think it may only be temporary) for Windows XP/2000/2003 drivers - at least the ones for my Lexmark Z605 printer (Used the newest XP/2003 driver from their site), Creative Webcam Notebook (used the newest XP driver from their site), the builtin modem (used the newest XP driver from Ibm's site), the TPM (Trusted Platform Module - used the newest driver from IBM's site which says XP/2000 on download page but only has a 2000 driver in it), etc......all worked flawlessly - I suspect this will be turned off when the OS is GOLD CODE as it was XP
Cons
Requires a rather powerful computer - I was testing the largest, most resource hogging version (remember that) - You will need at least a 2GB Pentium M (Athlon XP) or better processor, 1GB Ram (preferably DDR2), 40GB Hard drive and at the least a 64MB (non shared memory) video card that supports AEROEverything (and I do mean everything) is different, it all looks different, works different and acts different.....It is vaguely familiar if you are an experienced windows users and can be down right annoying when your used to quickly and easily doing something in XP and now you have to provide credentials to open a control panel applet, then more credentials when that applet changes something, then more credentials, then more credentials - oh and did I mention that they are all Windows Explorer based now so they all load in a pretty window that is slow as shit and has to refresh every time you click on an option to load a different page (almost like clicking a url and loading a different webpage)It has been dummied to the max - while I realize a lot of it is security related they have made it so that any yoyo can screw with stuff they have no business (or in XP would never even know they could screw with) screwing with - note I was using the Ultimate version a lot of these tools/applets/configurations will not be available in the lower versionsReactOS 0.3

I have to confess right off, I only played with this OS for like an hour....But I was impressed.

Pros
Allows you to run most WindowsXP software - install it and use it just like you would in XP - although some of it runs in WINE and some of it is supported nativelyAllows you to use WindowsXP drivers - for hardware classes that are supportedIs progressing towards being an XP-cloneSupports Multiple Desktops (on single or multiple monitors)The quickest OS install I have ever done - took less than 10 minutes from turning machine on and inserting the CD till I was completely booted to the Desktop (the actual install took less than 5 minutes) Cons
Most definitely still ALPHA softwareDoesn't support very much hardware (limited Networking, no USB)Old Windows 2000 style user interfaceCloned features don't work like you would expectExplorer (the file manager) sucks - it is more like the old Win3.1 file manager than the NT/2000/XP/2003 explorer.exe it is named afterWindows XP Pro SP2

I have been using XP for the better part of 5 years - I was an early Beta tester. With that said, I should also point out that I have only stuck with XP (Microsoft) out of necessity which I will explain after the pros and cons.

Pros
Easy to use/learnRelatively stable (SP2 is anyway)Enourmous amount of free and paid software (both commercial and non-commercial)Largest amount of supported hardware/peripherals of any OS ever (until manufacturers start writing drivers for VISTA which should be soon)Lots of software available to tweak, reconfigure and secure itFor the most part stuff just works Cons
Extemely Insecure and Buggy - while it normally works properly when it doesn't it doesn't in a big way that usually requires wiping the computer and performing a clean installOutdated UI that is rather slow when all Visual Enhancements are enabled - shouldn't be that dang slow after more than 10 years of development and patchesAutomatic Update (while it has undergone drastic improvement with SP2) still sucks, still can only do CRITICAL updates automatically......WTF.......I want Recommended Updates to be automatic and the option to make Driver Updates automaticGenuineAdvantage/ProductActivation is a major pain in the ass even if you own a legal copy of the OS - so much so I permanently removed that crap (using special software) and I only use Third-Party update software (I highly recommend AutoPatcher)The use of Third-Party Antivirus/Spyware/Adware/Firewall software that peforms real-time monitoring and protection seriously slows the system.....and I have tried like 20 different packages and numerous versions of each.....Such as McAfee Internet Suite, Norton Internet Security, F-Prot Security Suite, ZoneAlarm Security Suite Home, and many others......the only one that doesn't drastically (more than 10%) reduce system performance is Norton Internet Security 2005 and even it dropped performance by at least 50% until I got all the updates appliedNow as I stated earlier I still use XP/Microsoft out of necessity......I much rather use Ubuntu or PCLOS but I can't afford to go and buy hardware and peripherals to build a system that works with the OS I want to use......therefore I either don't have a printer, webcam, scanner (didn't even mention my Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT not working properly in any other OS including Vista) or I use XP.......additionally after more than 5 years of reloads, crashes, getting hacked, infected, etc. I can reinstall (from scratch) the OS, all my software (over 50 programs - half of which are to fix/tweak/secure XP) and restore all my data in about 4 hours......Which I did this morning. Of course I cheat like hell, I have my external 120Gb USB 2.0 drive mentioned earlier formatted with 5 different partitions (one for my Desktop - 21.1GB, one for Downloads - 31.4GB, one for My Documents/My Pictures - 21.3 GB and one for Mozilla (Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and other browsers like Opera) - 31GB. I keep all my desktop shortcuts, etc on the Desktop partition (easy to change this folder using TweakUI Powertoy). I keep all my Downloads (software I have to reinstall everytime) on the Downloads partition - I also have the My Music and My Videos folders remapped her using TweakUI. I keep all My Documents/My Pictures on the Documents partition (easy to change this folder using TweakUI Powertoy). I keep all my browser profiles, plugins, bookmarks, etc. on the Mozilla partition - once the browsers are reinstalled and run for the first time they can be closed and the Profiles.ini files they use can be quickly and easily edited to point to this location. I also have another partition labeled Software that is 8.77GB that I plan on making Bootable and installing a Windows-based Diagnostic and Repair OS like MiniPE. I plan to also customize it once installed so that when I boot to it it uses the other partitions/data on the drive and has my most important software installed in it.....That way if Windows crashes I can boot to it, still surf, send email, access my bookmarks, documents, music, etc until I get Windows repaired or reloaded.

For the record I know how to create an image of XP and save that image on my external drive.....however to image XP after I have all my software installed is like 20GB and takes longer to restore the image than it does for me to reinstall XP, software and perform my tweaks.

Conclusion

If you are:
An Average/Novice computer user I recommend sticking with WindowsXP or upgrading to Vista when it hits retail if you have a new (less than a year old) machine with a good video card (non-shared memory).A Moderate computer user I recommend PCLinuxOS - of course after checking all your hardware/peripherials against the Hardware Compatibility List and ensuring that everything you need is Supported.An Advanced Computer User (that knows how to edit the registery and perform routine tasks using scripts and/or the Command line (Terminal) then you probably don't need my recommendations.......but Ubuntu would be a good choice for you.

2006-10-26T06:48:00.000-07:00

Watch the "Using NoScript" video

what is it? Install NoScript latest version*
Privacy Tools
PrivacyAnywhere UltraSentry SpyFighter SpyNoMore
what is it?
There's a browser safer than Firefox... ...it is Firefox, with NoScript!
NoScript provides extra protection for your Mozilla/Firefox or Flock browser: this extension allows _JavaScript and Java execution only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site).
This whitelist based pre-emptive script blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even not known yet!) with no loss of functionality...
You can enable _JavaScript/Java execution for sites you trust with a simple left-click on the NoScript status bar icon (look at the picture), or using the contextual menu, for easier operation in popup statusbar-less windows.Watch the "Using NoScript" video kindly contributed by John Wilkerson.

2006-10-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

After the install of Windows XP do the following :

1) Turn off Hibernate and remove the Hibernate file from the root ( C: ) ( file is 300mb+ )
2) Turn off System Restore on ALL drives
3) Move the Pagefile to another drive like D:
4) Go into MSCONFIG and on the tab "startup" remove all the crap you do not need
5) Advanced Settings : see Below
Go to Start > Programs > Admin Tools > services
Double-click on the unwanted service to get the options for it
Click "STOP" to stop it if it is running
Change the start-up type from Automatic/Manual to DISABLED
The Following Services May Be Disabled :

Quote:
Quote:

Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Fast User Switching
Human Interface Access Devices
Indexing Service (Slows the hard drive down)
Messenger
Net Logon (unnecessary unless networked on a Domain)
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service (this is for the utterly pointless "Universal P'n'P", & leaves TCP Port 5000 wide open)
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telnet (disabled for extra security)
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (for wireless networks)
Workstation
6) Windows xp has the service shutdown time set to 20000 ms which equals 20 secs (no wonder it takes so long).

Go to regedit and change the key :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Con trol\\WaitToKillServiceTimeout
I set mine to 0 ms and now i shutdown way fast. Experiment with the settings.
Before we start tweaking, I recommend you set up a few things on your operating system.

Make sure you have Administrator privileges on the computer you are tweaking as some options may have been disabled for use by standard users. Also, there's ClearType. ClearType basically works to make text on your screen appear much clearer and readable

To turn ClearType on, just access your Display properties in Control Panel,
then click on the 'Appearances' tab. Then click the 'Effects...' button.

Tick 'Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts...' and change the listbox to 'ClearType'.
Then just click OK, Apply, and close down your dialogs.

Tweak #1 - MsConfig

Most of you will be familiar with MsConfig, which is basically a built-in system configuration utility for Windows. Open it up by simply going to Start -> Run..., then type 'msconfig' in the box and press enter. Now, the tab we are interested in here is the 'Startup' tab...
This box displays all of the programs that will be started when Windows boots up. None of these programs are vital for Windows, so don't feel worried about removing some of them in experimentation. You can see from the screenshot that I have disabled both NDetect (ICQ's start-up program) and WinAmpa (WinAmp, obviously). Now, if you've unchecked some boxes, Windows should start up faster and will take less resources by not running these programs in the background.

Tweak #2 - More Startup Tweakage
Now we're going to take the tweak above and go one step futher. Go to Start -> Run again, then type 'services.msc'.
This is a more detailed list of processes that are starting up with Windows. All those items with 'Automatic' listed next to their names are booting with Windows. Click on the items to find out just what they do. If you decide you don't need a certain service, you can simply right-click on it and change it's properties from 'Automatic' to 'Manual'.

Tweak #3 - Speeding Up Internet Explorer
This is a handy little trick you can use with Internet Explorer 6 (which ships with XP) to make it boot up extremely fast - instantly, on my system . This should be familiar to those of you who have created shortcuts for Half-Life mods and the like. For those of you who aren't familiar, simply right-click on a shortcut to Internet Explorer (such as the one in the Quicklaunch bar) and add the parameter '-nohome' to the end of the command line.

Tweak #4 - Menu Delays
Another minor and easy tweak to remove any delay from menus sliding out. For this you will need to use regedit (open regedit by going to Start -> Run..., then typing 'regedit' and pressing enter). The key you need to change is located in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. The actual key is called MenuShowDelay - all you have to do is change the value to 0. Remember, you will have to re-boot your computer for this tweak to take effect.

Tweak #5 - GPEDIT.MSC And Autoplay
A great tweaking file that comes with XP is gpedit.msc. Go to Start -> Run... and then type in 'gpedit.msc' and press enter. This is effectively the Policies Editor, and it comes in handy often. For example, if you hate CD autoplay like I do and want to permanently disable it, you can use this tool to do so. Just run gpedit.msc, then go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System. In here you can see the value 'Turn Off Autoplay'. Right-click on it and then click 'Properties'.

Now you can simply play around with the settings for this and other values in these folders, customizing appearance and performance issues.

Tweak #6 - Increasing Options In Add/Remove Menu
Not a fan of MSN Messenger? Don't want Windows Media Player on your system? Fair enough, but if you go to Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel, by default none of Windows XP's 'built in' programs are visible. It's fairly easy to change, though... just open the file X:\Windows\inf\sysoc.inf (where X: is the drive letter where Windows XP is installed) in Notepad. You should see a section of the file something like this:
[Components]
NtComponents=ntoc.dll,NtOcSetupProc,,4
WBEM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wbemoc.inf,hide,7
Display=desk.cpl,DisplayOcSetupProc,,7
Fax=fxsocm.dll,FaxOcmSetupProc,fxsocm.inf,,7
NetOC=netoc.dll,NetOcSetupProc,netoc.inf,,7
iis=iis.dll,OcEntry,iis.inf,,7
com=comsetup.dll,OcEntry,comnt5.inf,hide,7
dtc=msdtcstp.dll,OcEntry,dtcnt5.inf,hide,7
IndexSrv_System = setupqry.dll,IndexSrv,setupqry.inf,,7
TerminalServer=TsOc.dll, HydraOc, TsOc.inf,hide,2
msmq=msmqocm.dll,MsmqOcm,msmqocm.inf,,6
ims=imsinsnt.dll,OcEntry,ims.inf,,7
fp_extensions=fp40ext.dll,FrontPage4Extensions,fp4 0ext.inf,,7
AutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,au.inf,hide,7
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
RootAutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,rootau.inf,,7
IEAccess=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,ieaccess.inf,,7

This is a list of all components installed at the moment. I've taken the example of MSN Messenger - the program entry called 'msmsgs', third-last line. You can see the word 'hide' highlighted - this is the string which tells Windows not to display the component in the Add/Remove Programs list. Fix this up by simply deleting the word 'hide' like so:

msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
To this:
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7

Now, after restarting, you should be able to see MSN Messenger in the Add/Remove Programs list. If you want to be able to quickly view and remove all components, simply open the sysoc.inf file and do a global find and replace for the word ",hide" and replace it with a single comma ",".

Tweak #7 - Disabling Windows File Protection

WARNING: Using this tweak means you will be able to delete vital Windows files.

Here's a quick tweak to be able to totally disable Windows File Protection, the system that prevent users from deleting system and program files. Simply find the key SFCDisable in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and edit it to hold the value 0xFFFFFF9D.

If you want to re-enable File Protection, just re-set the value to 0.

Tweak #8 - Automatically Kill Programs At Shutdown
Don't you hate it when, while trying to shut down, you get message boxes telling you that a program is still running? Making it so that Windows automatically kills applications running is a snap. Simply navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop directory in the Registry, then alter the key AutoEndTasks to the value 1.

Note: the key 'AutoEndTasks' might not exist. If not, simply create it with a value of 1. To disable the AutoEndTask feature, simply change the value back to 0.

Tweak #9 - Memory Performance Tweaks
There are several memory tweaks that can be performed with Windows XP - all of them are located in the

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management

section of the registry.

Disable Paging Executive
In normal usage, XP pages sections from RAM memory to the hard drive. We can stop this happening and keep the data in RAM, resulting in improved performance. Note that only users with a large amount of RAM (256MB+) should use this setting. The setting we want to change to disable the 'Paging Executive', as it is called, is called DisablePagingExecutive. Changing the value of this key from 0 to 1 will de-activate memory paging.

System Cache Boost
Changing the value of the key LargeSystemCache from 0 to 1 will tell Windows XP to allocate all but 4MB of system memory to the file system cache, basically meaning that the XP Kernel can run in memory, greatly improving it's speed. The 4MB of memory left is used for disk caching, but if for any reason more is needed, XP allocates more. Generally, this tweak improves performance by a fair bit but can, in some intensive applications, degrade performance. As with the above tweak, you should have at least 256MB of RAM before attempting to enable LargeSystemCache.

Input/Output Performance
This tweak is only really valuable to anyone running a server - it improves performace while a computer is performing large file transfer operations. By default, the value does not appear in the registry, so you will have to create a REG_DWORD value called IOPageLockLimit. The data for this value is in bytes, and defaults to 512KB on machines that have the value. Most people using this tweak have found maximum performance in the 8 to 16 megabyte range, so you will have to play around with the value to find the best performance. Remeber that the value is measured in bytes, so if you want, say, 12MB allocated, it's 12 * 1024 * 1024, or 12582912. As with all these memory tweaks, you should only use this if you have 256MB or more of RAM.

Tweak #10 - Speeding Up Share Viewing
This is a great tweak. Before I found it, I was always smashing my head against the table waiting to view shares on other computers. Basically, when you connect to another computer with Windows XP, it checks for any Scheduled tasks on that computer - a fairly useless task, but one that can add up to 30 seconds of waiting on the other end - not good! Fortunately, it's fairly easy to disable this process. First, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace in the Registry. Below that, there should be a key called {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}. Just delete this, and after a restart, Windows will no longer check for scheduled tasks - mucho performance improvement!

Tweak #11 - Prioritizing Individual Processes
This is so simple it's not funny, but it leads into the next tweak... anyway, if you press Control+Alt+Delete, then click on the 'Processes' tab, you should get a dialog like the one above. You can see a list of all the processes running at the time. Now, if you are running a program that you want to dedicate more processing time to - eg, 3D Studio Max, as in my example, you can just right-click on the process, move your cursor down to 'Set Priority >', then select how high you want that program prioritized. While I'm checking my email, I might want a Normal priority for Max, but if I leave my Computer, I can increass it to 'RealTime' to get the most rendering done. Easy!

Tweak #12 - Prioritizing IRQs
The last tweak for this guide - and a good one. The main components of your computer have an IRQ number assigned to them. With this tweak we can increase the priority given to any IRQ number, thereby improving the performance of that component. The most common component this tweak is used for is the System CMOS/real time clock, which improves performance across the board. First of all, decide which component you want to give a performance boost to. Next, you have to discover which IRQ that piece of hardware is using. To do this, simply go to Control Panel, then open the System panel (You can also press the shortcut of Windows+Break). Click the 'Hardware' tab, then on the 'Device Manager' button.

Now, right click on the component you want to discover the IRQ for and click 'Properties', then click on the 'Resources' tab.

You can plainly see which IRQ this device is using (if there is no IRQ number, select another device). Remember the number and close down all of the dialog boxes you have opened, then start up RegEdit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\PriorityControl in the registry. Now, we have to create a new DWORD value - called IRQ#Priority (where '#' is the IRQ number), then set the data to 1. For example, the IRQ of my System CMOS is 8, so I would create the key IRQ8Priority.

Now, after restarting, you should notice improved performance in the component you tweaked. I would strongly recommend the CMOS, as it improves performance around the board. Also note that you can have multiple IRQ prioritized, but it is fairly inefficient and can cause instability. To remove this tweak, simply delete the value you created.

Scandisk
It is now hidden.To use it Go to >my Computer>Right click on your hard drive Icon>Properties>Tools>Error-checking.
It works just like the old scandisk.

WinXP Clear Page file on shutdown
Go to Control panel> Administrative tools> local security policy. then go to local policies> security options.
Then change the option for "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"

Easy send to menu modification
first open - Xocuments and SettingsusernameSendTo (it is hidden) where X is your drive letter and username is your username make and delete shortcuts to folders at will

Get rid of windows messenger
Start>Run>"gpedit.msc"
-Computer Configuration
-Administrative Templates
-Windows Components
-Windows Messenger
Here you can enable
"Do not allow Windows Messenger to be run"
and "Do not automatically start Windows Messenger initially"

Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons
Here's how you can remove those shortcut arrows from your desktop icons in Windows XP.

1. Start regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTlnkfile
3. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

You may need to restart Windows XP.

One of the most full featured Windows XP configuration tools available is hidden right there in your system, but most people don't even know it exists.
It's called the Local Group Policy Editor, or gpedit for short. To invoke this editor, select Start and then Run, then type the following:
gpedit.msc
After you hit ENTER, you'll be greeted by gpedit, which lets you modify virtually every feature in Windows XP without having to resort to regedit.
Dig around and enjoy!

Easier way to display windows icons on desktop
Rightclick on the desktop and select "properties".
In the new "display properties" window, click on the "desktop" tab.
Hit the "customize desktop..." button at the bottom of the window.
Now you can select the icons you want.
Enable cleartype on welcome login screen

Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop.
Locate the key FontSmoothingType.
Change the value to 2.
Restart

Select theme and color scheme for welcome screen
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentV ersionThemeManager
Locate the key NormalColor
Right Click on it and select modify.
Change where it says "NormalColor" to "Metallic"
Click Ok, and exit regedit
Restart

Show file extensions
In any folder that contains files. Click on the tools menu and select folder options.
Then click on the view tab.
Locate where it lists Hide extensions of known file types and uncheck it.
Click OK

Display "Internet Explorer" on the desktop
Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows
CurrentVersionExplorerHideDesktopIconsNewStartPane l
Once there, locate {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} in the list
on the right.
Right click on it and select Modify
Change the value equal to 0
Reboot your computer

Windows 2000 style logon
To revert back to the Win2k style logon so you can log on as the administrator and other options, press ctrl+alt+delete twice

Remove Shared Doc's from My Computer
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows
CurrentVersionExplorerMyComputerNameSpaceDelegateF olders.
Locate the key {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}.
Right click on it and select delete.
After a reboot is is gone!

Turn off autoplay for CDs
Go to Start->Run->gpedit.msc
Computer Config -> Administrative Template -> System
Double clik Turn off Autoplay
Enable it.

Show hidden files
In any folder that contains files. Click on the tools menu and select folder options.
Then click on the view tab.
Locate where it lists Hidden files and folders and select Show hidden files and folders.
Click OK.

Remove "Comments?" Link from title bar
Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop
Once there, locate LameButtonEnabled on the list on the right.
Right click on it and select Modify
Change the value equal to 0
Reboot your computer and the comments link will be gone!

Speed up Internet Explorer 6 Favorites
For some reason, the Favorites menu in IE 6 seems to slow down dramatically sometimes--I've noticed this happens when you install Tweak UI 1.33, for example, and when you use the preview tip to speed up the Start menu.
But here's a fix for the problem that does work, though it's unclear why:
Just open a command line window (Start button -> Run -> cmd) and type sfc, then hit ENTER. This command line runs the System File Checker, which performs a number of services, all of which are completely unrelated to IE 6.But there you go:
It works.

XP memory tweaks
Below are some Windows XP memory tweaks. They are located in the
windows registry at:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetContro lSession ManagerMemory Management

DisablePagingExecutive - When enabled, this setting will prevent the paging of the Win2k Executive files to the hard drive, causing the OS and most
programs to be more responsive. However, it is advised that people should
only perform this tweak if they have a significant amount of RAM on their
system (more than 128 MB), because this setting does use a substantial
portion of your system resources. By default, the value of this key is 0.
To enable it, set it to 1.
LargeSystemCache - When enabled (the default on Server versions of Windows 2000), this setting tells the OS to devote all but 4 MB of system memory (which is left for disk caching) to the file system cache. The main effect of this is allowing the computer to cache the OS Kernel to memory, making the OS more responsive. The setting is dynamic and if more than 4 MB is needed from the disk cache for some reason, the space will be released to it. By default, 8MB is earmarked for this purpose. This tweak usually makes the OS more responsive. It is a dynamic setting, and the kernel will give up any space deemed necessary for another application (at a performance hit when such changes are needed). As with the previous key, set the value from 0 to 1 to enable. Note that in doing this, you are consuming more of your system RAM than normal. While LargeSystemCache will cut back usage when other apps need more RAM, this process can impede performance in certain intensive situations. According to Microsoft, the "[0] setting is recommended for servers running applications that do their own memory caching, such as Microsoft SQL Server, and for applications that perform best with ample memory, such as Internet Information Services."
IOPageLockLimit - This tweak is of questionable value to people that aren't running some kind of server off of their computer, but we will include it anyway. This tweak boosts the Input/Output performance of your computer when it is doing a large amount of file transfers and other similar operations. This tweak won't do much of anything for a system without a significant amount of RAM (if you don't have more than 128 MB, don't even bother), but systems with more than 128 MB of RAM will generally find a performance boost by setting this to between 8 and 16 MB. The default is 0.5 MB, or 512 KB. This setting requires a value in bytes, so multiply the desired number of megabytes * 1024 * 1024. That's X * 1048576 (where X is the number, in megabytes). Test out several settings and keep the one which seems to work best for your system.

Disable unnecessary services to free system resources

Services are programs that run when the computer starts up and continue to run as they aid the operating system in functionality. There are many services that load and are not needed which take up memory space and CPU time. Disabling these services will free up system resources which will speed up your overall computer experience. I recommend that you sort through the list and read the descriptions to decide if you need that service depending on what you want to do with your computer. Remember, you can always turn the service back on if you find that you need it in the future. Below is the procedure to turn off a service.

Click the start button.
Select run from the bottom of the right column.
Then type services.msc in the box and click ok.
Once the services window has loaded we are ready to turn off unneeded services.
For instructional purposes we are going to turn off the Portable Media Serial Number service.
Find this service in the list and select it with the mouse.
Right click and select Properties.
Once the properties windows has loaded locate the Start up type drop down box and select disable.
Then just click ok and the next time the computer starts the service will not be loaded.

Speed up menu display

When using the start menu the you will notice a delay between different tiers of the menu hierarchy. For the fastest computer experience possible I recommend changing this value to zero. This will allow the different tiers to appear instantly.

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop
Select MenuShowDelay from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to 100.
Reboot your computer

Disable unnecessary programs

Installing many programs on you computer can often clutter your registry with unnecessary programs running when your computer starts up. This will slow down your machine and take up memory.

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVe rsionRun
Once there, locate any entry's on the right. You can identify the program by the path to the executable. Find programs that you can live without starting up from the list.
Right click on them and select Delete
You may also want to navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVe rsionRunonce and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentV ersionRun.
Delete unnecessary programs.
Reboot your computer

Enable or disable boot defrag

A great new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This places all boot files next to each other on the disk to allow for faster booting. By default this option in enables but on some builds it is not so below is how to turn it on.

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftDfrgBootOptimiz eFunction
Select Enable from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to Y to enable and N to disable.
Reboot your computer.

Modify auto-reboot setting

Since Microsoft has worked so hard to make this version "the most stable ever," then this tweak is not needed. However, I am fairly sure that they have not perfected millions of lines of code in less than a year. Below you will discover how to turn the auto reboot feature on and off. This allows your computer to instantly reboot upon a system fault. (The blue screen)

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlCr ashControl
Select AutoReboot from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to 0 to disable and 1 to enable.
Reboot your computer

Modify application timeout

The operating system has a set amount of time that a program must be frozen for before it is timed out. Often this number is set too high. But in some circumstances it is set too low. Depending on if the program is doing a lot of calculations in the background the computer may think that it is timed out. To prevent this increase the value of the timeout in the registry.
Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop
Select HungAppTimeout from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to the new timeout value.
Reboot your computer.

Security: Do not save encrypted...
The latest versions of internet explorer include some great new security improvements. For this tweak I will talk about enabling the feature to not save encrypted files to disk. This is a valuable feature. When you connect to a site that is encrypted the data sent over the network is encrypted. Your browser has the key to decrypt and display the information. Why give someone a chance to crack the encryption. If you don't allow IE to save it to disk then it is nearly impossible for someone else to be able to get that file and use brute force to crack it.

Launch Internet Explorer.
Select the Tools from the menu bar.
Then select Internet Options... from the drop down menu.
Once the internet options has loaded click on the advanced tab.
Under security find where it says Do not save encrypted pages to disk and check it.
Click OK

Disable home page to speed up launch
One quick way to speed up launching internet explorer is to not set a home page. By using a blank home page internet explorer does not have to use additional cpu time and uses the hard drive less. After all most of the time you want to go to a different site right away so it is not going to affect your productivity at all.

Launch Internet Explorer.
Select the Tools from the menu bar.
Then select Internet Options... from the drop down menu.
Once the internet options has loaded click on the general tab.
Under the home page section click the use blank button.
Click OK

Security: Clear temp files on close
The latest versions of internet explorer include some great new security improvements. For this tweak I will talk about the feature that clear the temporary internet files each time you close internet explorer.

Launch Internet Explorer.
Select the Tools from the menu bar.
Then select Internet Options... from the drop down menu.
Once the internet options has loaded click on the advanced tab.
Under security find where it says Empty Temporary internet files folder when browser is closed and check it.
Click OK

Change default pages for events

Internet explorer default pages for events such as navigation canceled, navigation failed, offline information, and blank page are stored in the registry. You can replace these pages with your own if you would like to customize Internet Explorer.
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerAboutURLs
Modify the key values to the full path on the hard drive. C:page.htm
Uninstall windows messenger

Microsoft has tried really hard to prevent you from uninstalling windows messenger. They failed to make it difficult enough because with the directions below you can get rid of messenger very easily.
Navigate to C:windowsinf
Open sysoc.inf
find msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7 in the file and take out the word hide so the line would look like msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7
Close the file and save it
Now go to the Add and remove programs applet in the control panel and you will be able to uninstall windows messenger.
Make sure to click on the add remove windows components button.
Note: You will be able to uninstall other unneeded programs by removing hide from the sysoc.inf file as well.

Clear pagefile on shutdown

For added security you should always clear the page file upon shutting down your computer. Windows uses this file as extra ram. Lets say that you are working on a confidential MS Word doc. When you load this document it is loaded into ram. To save ram windows places certain items in the page file. The page file can then be opened and the document can be extracted as well as any other open program or files. However Microsoft has implemented a feature that will clear the page file but they do not have it enabled by default. Please note, this will slightly increase the amount of time it takes to shut down your computer but it is well worth it.

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSe ssion ManagerMemory Management
Select ClearPageFileAtShutdown from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to 1 to enable.
Reboot your computer

Disable error reporting
One feature that I can do without is error reporting. Every time a program crashes I do not want to send a report to microsoft. Read below to find out how to disable this stupid feature.
Open Control Panel
Click on Preformance and Maintenance.
Click on System.
Then click on the Advanced tab
Click on the error reporting button on the bottom of the windows.
Select Disable error reporting.
Click OK
Click OK

Display message on startup
If you would like to display a legal message or any other message in a pop-up window when windows starts read below:
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows
NTCurrentVersionWinlogon
Modify the key legalnoticecaption with what you want to name the window.
Modify the key legalnoticetext with what you want the window to say.
Restart.

Turn off system beeps
If those beeps annoy you there is a way to turn them off
Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelSound
Once there, locate Beep on the list on the right.
Right click on it and select Modify
Change the value equal to no
Reboot your computer and the beeps will be gone!

Enable Hibernation
Click on the start button and select turn off computer. Then hold down the shift key and the hibernate button will be shown. Click it and your computer will enter into hibernation.

Multi Boot tweaking
By modifying a boot.ini you can set your default OS or change the names of OS , how they appear in boot menu (i.e. You can change "Microsoft Windows Codename Whistler Proffessional" to "Microsoft Windows XP"). Additionally, you can change the amount of time the menu is displayed for and the default OS.

Create a shortcut to lock computer
Right click on desktop and select new -> shortcut. Then copy and paste this in the program location box "rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation" Click next and enter a name for you shortcut and then click finish. Now you can copy and paste that shortcut anywhere you want on your computer.
Use the group policy tool to restrict access

If you would like to play computer god and limit or control just about every aspect of your computer you can use a great tool called the group policy editor.
Click Start and select Run
Type gpedit.msc in the text box and click on OK.
The group policy editor will load. Navigate through the folders and you will discover hundreds of items that you can limit access to and control.

CD Autoplay/auto insert notification Settings without regediting
The settings for autoplay and cd recording can be tweaked by opening
explorer or my computer, right click on the cd-rom drive, then click
properties.

2006-09-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the other Good People that G4Tv USA has fired:
sarahlane.typepad.com [sarahlane.typepad.com]
kevinrose.typepad.com [kevinrose.typepad.com]
kevinrose.com [kevinrose.com]
leoville.com [leoville.com]
yoshi.us/forums/index.php [yoshi.us/forums/index.php] ?

Stumble Tweaks & Tricks

channels.lockergnome.com/windows/ [channels.lockergnome.com/windows/]
systm.org [systm.org]

plasticbugs.com [plasticbugs.com]
mikeslist.com [mikeslist.com]
catschwartz.com [catschwartz.com]
geeklinks.net/ttvm/ [geeklinks.net/ttvm/]

-C3's Top Sites The Best at what they do

'Flight Deals Booking Buddy

bang-olufsen.com/web2/home.asp [bang-olufsen.com/web2/home.asp]
2000 and XP Help
5 best businesses to start in 2003 and beyond

_E S P N _
All Experts
Apple - iTunes
Ask Yahoo! - Best of 2003

AskMen.com - Free Men's Online Magazine
astalavista.box.sk
Auto Trader
Awards Winners
Basics of Building a Computer
Best Holiday Destinations of 2003 - Adventure Travel Archives

Best Products of 2003 PcMag
Best Retailers to Work For | Best Retail Employers
Best Sites on the Web - 2004

Recent Price Drops

Best of 2003: Top 10 Astronomy Images
Best of CES 2004

best workouts of 2003 browster.com [browster.com]

Beta News
Bloomingdales
Buy everything on eBay - collectibles, digital cam

Buy.com - Best of 2003
C N E T

C i sco
CBS News | Cinema: Year's Best and Worst | December 22, 2003Â 16:23:43
CHILL OUT
Car Max

Car nad Driver
consumer reports

Cool Site of the Day

D O G P I L E
D R U G E Report
DVD Decoder Orion Studios

Daily Deal - Reseller Ratings

Dp Review
Ebay
Edmunds Auto Research

G R C
Gizmos Sneak Peak

HAMMACHER SCHLEMMER
Hacker Wacker

help.yahoo.com

linux.box.sk [linux.box.sk]
Cnet Recent Price Drops

shopper.cnet.com/4003-5_9-0.html [shopper.cnet.com/4003-5_9-0.html]

BEST SPORTS SHOW !!

crutchfield.com [crutchfield.com]
IT Professionals Page

klipsch Speakers
Mapquest
Medicle Links
Meta Search- Meta Crawler Like Dogpile

Mozilla 1.5
New car prices, used car pricing, auto reviews by Edmunds car buying guide

Nzone GaMe sceenshots
Open Office Free
Over clocking sTeps
P C W O R L D
PC MAG
Palm Digital Media: BEST OF 2003

Pandia Power search
Pc Mag'sBest Choices
Refdesk: reference, facts, news, free and family friendly
Reseller Ratings Vendor Search

S I R I U S
Samsung
Shareware Industry Awards Foundation - 2003 Nominees and Winners

Site Map C N E T
Site of the Week PC MAG

Steves Digicams The Best
street tech

Tech Tv
TechNet Online - Default Home Page

cnet.com/2001-10107_1-0.html [cnet.com/2001-10107_1-0.html]

The Games Spot
The Sharper Image

TOP CLIPS*****

The Sporting News: Baseball - Chicago Cubs
Time 50 Hotest Links 2004
Toast speed test

craigslist

Toms Hardware
top 100 usernet news groups

UGO Pc Games

USA TODAY WEB Guide

USA Today
useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design

Victoria 's Secret
Videoage
Virtual WWW Library

TOP 40 PODCAST On Demand

Walmart
Web.com Web Hosting
X B O X

XM Radio.com
Z O N E L A B S
ZDNet's Office 2000 Guide
diggvsdot.com [diggvsdot.com]

Daily Deals

CNET

forums.anandtech.com/categories.cfm
[anandtech.com]

shopping.msn.com/content/shp
[msn.com]

digg.com/deals/digg [digg.com/deals/digg]

dealdump.com [dealdump.com]

Internet Retailer Best of the Web 2006

BestBuy.com

CDBaby.com

CircuitCity.com

Crutchfield.com

Headsets.com

HPShopping.com

iTunes.com

Netflix.com

Newegg.com

SonyStyle.com

ThinkGeek.com

How Do I Fight Spyware and Virus's:

microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/expert/honeycutt_spyware.mspx [microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/expert/honeycutt_spyware.mspx]

This is what Works for Me:

1)I Update xp Weekly via Windows update

2)I update my antivrus daily-Manually
securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/defs.download.html [securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/defs.download.html]

3)I use Spybot Search and Distroy Weekly:
safer-networking.org/en/index.html [safer-networking.org/en/index.html]
I also use spybots advanced tools to stop unwanted startup programs

4) I use Ad-adware Professional as well
NOT SURE WHAT the difference is Pro vs the free version ?
lavasoftusa.com/software/adawareprofessional/ [lavasoftusa.com/software/adawareprofessional/]

5) I run Spyblaster in the background;
javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html [javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html]

6)I run Microsoft Beta Antispyware in the back ground:
Which checks my system nightly@ 2am
microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx [microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx]

7)I run an online Virus Check Once in a while:
Trendmicros HouseCall seems to be a good Online Double Check.
housecall.trendmicro.com [housecall.trendmicro.com]

I run alot of Tv Torrent Files on my Pc Daily So consequently my system becomes heavily defraged Daily
8)To take care of the Defraging problem I run Diskeeper 9 pro to Defrag my Hard Drives automatically nightly.
executive.com/diskeeper/diskeeper.asp [executive.com/diskeeper/diskeeper.asp]
There is an exellent free version Of "Diskeeper Home Edition": It can be downloaded @ majorgeeks.com/Diskeeper_Home_Edition_d4382.html [majorgeeks.com/Diskeeper_Home_Edition_d4382.html]

microsoft.com/security/default.mspx [microsoft.com/security/default.mspx]
Malicious Software Removal Tool
Published: January 11, 2005 | Updated: June 14, 2005
microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx [microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx]

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific,
prevalent malicious software--including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom--and helps
remove any infection found. When the detection and removal process is complete,
the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed.
microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx [microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx]
I have not tried this Malicious Software Removal Tool yet, but if you at this point you might as well run it right?
:

labmice.techtarget.com/articles/winxpsecuritychecklist.htm [labmice.techtarget.com/articles/winxpsecuritychecklist.htm]

Windows XP Security Checklist

Other Tool Considerations:

Sygate:
sygate.com [sygate.com] ,
Sygate Personal Firewall is more than an advanced, user-friendly personal firewall, it's a bi-directional intrusion defense system. It ensures your personal computer is completely protected from malicious hackers and other intruders while preventing unauthorized access from your computer to a network. In essence, it makes your protected machines invisible to the outside world.
majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php [majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php]

Zone Alarm:
zonealarm.com [zonealarm.com]
ZoneAlarm makes it easy. Unlike other personal firewalls, ZoneAlarm protects automatically from the moment it's installed - no programming required. ZoneAlarm barricades your PC with immediate and complete port blocking. And, then runs in Stealth Mode to make your PC invisible on the Internet - if you can't be seen, you can't be attacked majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php [majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php]
Symantec/Norton:

norton.com [norton.com] ,
NOD32:

nod32.com/home/home.htm [nod32.com/home/home.htm] ,

AVG: grisoft.com/us/us_index.php [grisoft.com/us/us_index.php]
A Great Free Alternitve For AntiVirus majorgeeks.com/AVG_Free_Edition_d886.html [majorgeeks.com/AVG_Free_Edition_d886.html]

StartUpMonitor:

mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml [mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml]
StartupMonitor is a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn't even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents those utterly useless tray applications from registering themselves behind your back, and it acts as a security tool against trojans like BackOrifice or Netbus.
,

WinPatrol:

sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html [sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html] RootkitRevealer is an advanced patent-pending root kit detection utility. It runs on Windows NT 4 and higher and its output lists Registry and file system API discrepancies that may indicate the presence of a user-mode or kernel-mode rootkit. RootkitRevealer successfully detects all persistent rootkits published at rootkit.com [rootkit.com] , including AFX, Vanquish and HackerDefender (note: RootkitRevealer is not intended to detect rootkits like Fu that don't attempt to hide their files or registry keys). If you use it to identify the presence of a rootkit please let us know tinyurl.com/d6arr [tinyurl.com/d6arr]

2006-09-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

tinyurl.com/fjr3r [tinyurl.com/fjr3r]

Oh ya.. IPcop kicks the crap out of any consumer level thing.

Originally I had a old 2.2 kernel based router, booted up from a floppy and ran from memory. But the fans were going out on that thing and it was getting noisy and I wanted wireless and the bios on that machine (a craptastic compaq) refused to recognize my wireless card.

So I went out and bought a Linksys 'broadband wifi router'. Damn that thing was bad compared to my old Linux router. Complete crap. I had reduced network performance, bittorrent slowed down. Trying to update my gaming servers with xqf would Denial-Of-Service my own freaking router because it couldn't handle that many connections. Utter peice of garbage.

So when we wear recycling PCs at work I made sure to grab a 200mhz Dell machine and stuff it full of old 3com 100Mb nic cards.

I figured I use IPcop until I had time to build my own firewall rules using OpenBSD's stuff, but damn it impressed me. It was easy to setup and had more features then I could shake a stick at.

Now I have fast reliable internet access between multiple machines. I've added OpenVPN support so that I can connect to my local network via a tls-encrypted vpn anywere I can get HTTP access to the internet (even works over web proxies). I have a DMZ zone for wireless (much more reliable then WEP or WPA or WPA2 for security), I can setup a special zone just for internet facing servers (although I haven't done that yet) and all sorts of other stuff.

And the web interface is great.

freesco.org [freesco.org]

2006-09-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

2006-09-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Network Monitoring Tools *

Page Contents

Addition History

Analyzer/Sniffer, Application/Services monitoring, Flow monitoring, FTP, Network security, SNMP tools, Topology, VOIP,

Public Domain Network Monitoring Tools

Application Monitoring, Finger Printing, FTP, Mapping, Monitoring Infrastructures, Packet Capture, Path Characterization, Ping, RRDtool, SNMP, Throughput tools, Traceroute,

Useful utilities and Demos

What is my IP address/traceroute?

What is my IP address, OS, browser?

Test my network configuration from Stanford, from ANL

Bandwidth test to my host

End host monitoring agent

RTT & bandwidth test

Index of Links on this Page by Label
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2006	BBMonitor, Cacti, CSchmidt collection, EZ-NOC, Eye-on Bandwidth, Gigamon University, LITHIUM, NetMRG, NetworkActiv Scanner, NimTech, Nsauditor, Nuttcp, PIAFCTM, Plab, PSentry, Rider, RSP, SftpDrive, SNM, SpeedTest, Sysmon, TruePath, Unbrowse, Unsniff, WatchMouse, Web Server Stress Tool, Zenoss,
2005	Advanced HostMonitor, Alvias, Airwave, AppMonitor, BitTorrent, bulk, BWCTL, Caligare Flow Inspector, Cittio, ClearSight, Distinct Network Monitor, EM7, EZMgt, GigaMon, Host Grapher II, HPN-SSH, Javvin Packet Analyzer, Just-ping, LinkRank, MoSSHe, mturoute, N-able OnDemand, Netcool, netdisco, Netflow Monitor, NetQoS, Pathneck, OWAMP, PingER, RANCID, Scamper, SCAMPI, Simple Infrastructure Capacity Monitor, Spirent, SiteMonitor, STC, SwitchMonitor, SysUpTime, TansuTCP, thrulay, Torrus, Tstat, VSS Monitoring, WebWatchBot, WildPackets, WWW Resources for Communications & Networking Technologies, ZoneRanger,
2004	CleverEye, CueVision, D-ITG, FastCopy, FREEping, Ganglia, H.323 Beacon, GFI Network Services Monitor, internetVista, IPCheck Server Monitor, Little:eye, MonitorMagic, N-central, N-vision, Netmeter, NetMechnica, Network Physics, NetVizor, Observer, OSSMon, Overseer Network Monitor, Orca, PRTG Traffic Grapher, QOVIA, QRadar, Route Explorer, Scriptroute, Server Nanny, SNMP Explorer, ServerFiles.com, SNMP Informant, STAB a Linux tracepath, SolarWinds Orion, Vantage, Vigilix, VitalNet, WatchTower Website Monitoring, WindowsNetworking.com, Wombat, ZTI,
2003	ABwE, ActivXpets, AdventNet Web NMS, Analyse It, Argus, Big Sister, CyberGauge, eGInnovations, Internet Detective, Intellipool Network Monitor, JFF Network Management System, LANsurveyor, LANWatch, LoriotPro, MonitorIT, Nagios, NetIntercept, NetMon, NetStatus, Network Diagnostic Tool, Network Performance Advisor, NimBUS, NPS, Network Probe, NetworksA-OK, NetStat Live, Open NerveCenter, OPENXTRA, Packeteer, PacketStorm, Packetyzer, PathChirp, Integrien, Sniff'em, Spong, StableNet PME, TBIT, Tcptraceroute, Tping, Trafd, Trafshow, TrapBlaster, Traceroute-nanog, Ultra Network Sniffer, Vivere Networks,
2002	ANL Web100 Network Configuration Tester, Anritsu, aslookup, AlertCenter, Alertra, AlertSite, Analyse-it, bbcp, BestFit, Bro, Chariot, CommView, Crypto-PAn, elkMonitor, DotCom, Easy Service Monitor, Etherpeek, Fidelia, Finisar, Fpinger, GDChart, HipLinkXS, ipMonitor, LANExplorer, LinkFerret, LogisoftAR, MGEN, Netarx, NetCrunch, NetDetector, NetGeo, NEPM, NetReality, NIST Net, NLANR AAD, NMIS, OpenNMS PageREnterprise, PastMon, Pathprobe, remstats, RIPmon, RFT, ROMmon, RUDE, Silverback, SmokePing, Snuffle, SysOrb, Telchemy, TCPTune, TCPurify, UDPmon, WebAttack, Zabbix,
2001	AdventNet SNMP API, Alchemy Network Monitor, Anasil analyzer, Argent, Autobuf, Bing, Clink, DSLReports, Firehose, GeoBoy, PacketBoy, Internet Control Portal, Internet Periscope, ISDNwatch, Metrica/NPR, Mon, NetPredict, NetTest, Nettimer, Net-One-1, Pathrate, RouteView, sFlow, Shunra, Third Watch, Traceping, Trellian, HighTower, WCAT, What's Up Gold, WS_FTP, Zinger,
2000	Analyzer, bbftp, Big Brother, Bronc, Cricket, EdgeScape, Ethereal (now renamed Wireshark), gen_send/gen_recv, GSIFTP, Gtrace, Holistix, InMon, NcFTP, Natas, NetAlly, NetScout, Network Simulator, Ntop, PingGraph, PingPlotter, Pipechar, RRD, Sniffer, Snoop, StatScope, Synack, View2000, VisualPulse, WinPcap, WU-FTPD, WWW performance monitoring, Xplot
1999	Cheops, Ganymede, hping2, Iperf, JetMon, MeasureNet, MatLab, MTR, NeoTrace, Netflow, NetLogger, Network health, NextPoint, Nmap, Pchar, Qcheck, SAA, SafeTP, Sniffit, SNMP from UCSD, Sting, ResponseNetworks, Tcpshow, Tcptrace WinTDS,
1998	NetOps, Triticom, Maple, PV-Wave, S-Plus, VisualRoute
1997	INS Net Perf Mgmt survey, tcpspray, Mapnet, Keynote, prtraceroute clflowd flstats, fping, tcpdpriv, NetMedic Pathchar, CAIDA Measurement Tool Taxonomy, bprobe & cprobe
1996	mrtg, NetNow, NetraMet, Network Probe Daemon, InterMapper, Lachesis, Optimal Networks, Digex

Introduction [Contents]

The following Network Monitoring Tools grew out of a list that were reported to be in use at 11 ESnet sites in a survey made by the ESnet Network Monitoring Task Force (NMTF) and completed in October 1995. For some snapshots of earlier web pages see the Internet Archive Wayback site. Where possible I have provided hypertext links to further sources of information on the tool. These links vary in quality ranging from a pointer to the vendors home page, to the man pages entry, and to how to download the code. This is a volunteer, unfunded effort. This helps assure its independence. Increasingly new additions are from reader suggestions/recommendations. We also welcome corrections such as identifying broken links.

Suggestions (please make sure that you indicate where the tool fits in the hierarchy and provide a short one sentence description of the tool's purpose with no marketing hyperbole).

Network Monitoring Platforms (NMPs) [Contents]

AdventNet Web NMS
Airwave Management PlatformT (AMP) wireless network management software provides centralized control for Wi-Fi networks. Features include: access point configuration management, reporting, user tracking, help desk views, and rogue AP discovery.
Spectrum (ex Cabletron, now Aprisma)
Fidelia also has the Helix entry level tool for small enterprises.
Castle Rock
EM7 from Sciencelogic is an NMS integrated with trouble-ticketing, event management, reporting, IP management, DNS and monitoring.
ipMonitor is a network monitoring solution that allows network administrators, webmasters, and Internet service providers to monitor any networked device on the Internet, corporate intranet, or TCP/IP LAN and receive alerts immediately via audible alarm, message, e-mail, or third-party software when a connection fails. It is a powerful personal monitoring product delivering low cost, simplicity of operation, and round-the-clock coverage.
Just For Fun Network Monitoring System (JFFNMS) is FREE and designed to maintain a IP SNMP / Syslog / Tacacs+ Network. It can be used to monitor any standards compilant SNMP device, Server, TCP port or Custom Poller, also it has some Cisco oriented features.
LANsurveyor network and desktop management software providing automatic network maps, asset management reports, network monitor and remote administration and distribution.
LITHIUM LITHIUM|Core is an integrated device and service monitoring platform with a tightly coupled incident tracking and case management system and incorporates a web-based interface as well as Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X monitoring consoles.
Netcool suite offers five product families that support domain-specific IT management, end-to-end consolidated operations and business service management.
LogisoftAR provides is an NMP running under Windows providing device discovery, mapping, fault (using SNMP traps and syslog) and performance management. Reporting is provided in HTML pages.
N-vision provides availability, performance, security and service management to multiple customers from one central Web console.
NimBUS for Network Monitoring solution verifies network connectivity to devices (routers, switches, servers, etc.) and application services (FTP, SMTP, HTTP, etc.) revealing accessibility and network latency. The solution auto-discovers network interfaces, monitors interface traffic and calculates bandwidth utilization. Uses SNMP and if not available then syslog can be used.
OpenNMS
HP OpenView
IBM Netview/AIX
Intellipool Network Monitor is a solution for monitoring, notification, and reporting. It includes agentless monitoring of Windows, Unix, Linux, and BSD operating system. It also includes distributed testing, a unique feature that makes it possible to monitor servers, routers and other network connected equipment that are behind a firewall or only accessible trough a VPN.
InterMapper Networking monitoring and alerting software for Mac, Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
Little:eye, for management of IT infrastructure of enterprise provides management of fault, performance, inventory and configuration.
NetCrunch from AdRem, provides visualization of physical network topology; flexible performance monitoring, trending and reporting; event filtering and escalation; SNMP management; web access.
NetMechanica provides low-cost network masnagement services.
SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor will monitor and collect data from routers, switches, servers, and any other SNMP enabled devices. Additionally, Orion monitors CPU Load, Memory utilization, and available Disk Space. Orion NPM is highly scalable, capable of monitoring from 10 to over 10,000 nodes.
Sun Solstice
StableNet PME Carrier-Grade performance management tool, built upon open standards. Supports active (Ping, SAA) and passive (SNMP, RMON, NetFlow, SFlow) measurements. Integrated topology/inventory, SLA/SLM, reporting.
SwitchMonitor from NetLatency is a network performance monitoring system that runs on Windows and is designed to monitor network devices for utilization and errors using SNMP.
SysOrb monitors both network equipment and servers/applications and is accessed via a web interface. Monitoring is done with Agents and IP and SNMP polling. SysOrb comes with an embedded database for stats, alert notification module, report generator etc.
SysUpTime is a free distributed network/systems management product. It provides users out-of-box capabilities to efficiently and proactively manage networks of any size.
VitalNet from Lucent provides on-demand access to data to track, analyze, manage and predict problems, improve capacity utilization and meet service quality commitments. It provides Web-based graphical visibility into wireless or wireline multi-vendor network for DSL, VPN, IP Centrex, streaming video, GigE and diverse 3G wireless services.
WhatsUpGold Simple network monitoring tool, detects unavailable services, sends alarms to pagers and produces web page of colorful alerts.

Monitoring Tools Integrated with NMP [Contents]

Cabletron Remote LAN Manager
Ciscoworks
NetMetrix
Optimal Networks.

Commercial Monitoring Tools, not integrated with an NMP [Contents]

ActivXperts Network Monitor monitors servers and workstations in your LAN and WAN. The software monitors Windows, UNIX, LINUX and Novell servers for availability.
AlertCenter provides monitoring, alerting and corrective action automation scheduling. It is part of the MKS Toolkit.
AlertSite measures, diagnoses, notifies and reports on the availability and performance of servers, URLs, web applications and virtually any Internet connected device or application.
Analyzer/Sniffers, see also public domain capture tools.
- Anritsu provide the MD1230 portable network and IP network performance monitor.
- Anasil Analyzer is a software network analyzer of Ethernet networks for Windows 95/98/NT/2000.
- ClearSight provide an Analyzer/sniffer (up through 10Gbits/s), packet generator.
- CommView is a program for monitoring Internet and Local Area Network (LAN) activity capable of capturing and analyzing network packets. It gathers information about data passing through your dial-up connection or Ethernet card and decodes the analyzed data.
- Distinct Network Monitor is a software packet capture and network protocol analyzer for Windows that translates complex protocol negotiation into natural language, pinpointing where errors occurred.
- Easy Service Monitor (ESM) will monitor network services to see if they can work properly with a predefined time interval. It runs on Windows.
- Etherpeek for Windows is an Ethernet network traffic and protocol analyzer designed to assist in troubleshooting and debugging mixed-platform, multi-protocol networks.
- Finisar provide sniffer like stand alone network test and monitoring devices for 10/100/1G and iSCSI, Infiniband and Fiber Channel.
- GigaMon Provide a hardware switch to enable connecting a sniffer to multiple links.
- Javvin Packet Analyzer software-based network analyzer monitors Ethernet and WLAN traffic in real time, and decode packets and displays in.
- LANExplorer provides packet capture, decode, filtering, matrix, host table, statistics, theresholding and alarms for Windows hosts.
- LANWarch Windows software-based network packet analyzer monitors traffic in real time and displays a wide range of statistics in graphical form.
- LinkFerret tools are designed to provide a comprehensive set of monitoring utilities and packet sniffers to be used for capture, statistical analysis, and protocol decoding in your Ethernet network. It runs on Windows 98/NT4/2000/XP.
- Network Probe is a Windows or Unix network monitor and protocol analyzer providing a picture of the traffic situation on your network and enables you to monitor network traffic in real time, hunt down, identify, and isolate traffic problems and congestions on your network.
- Observer from Network Instruments is a network analyser (Packet sniffer) for 10/100/1000 100/1000 Full Duplex and Multi truncked Ethernet links, wireless a,b an d g, token ring and FDDI.
- NetworkActive PIAFCTM (Packet Intercepting, Analyzing, File Constructing Traffic Monitor) network traffic analyzer; packet/protocol analyzer, HTTP file rebuilder, graphical traffic mode (graphical overview of current network communications), and traffic statistics mode. There is also a free for personal and commercial use version that provides a network traffic analyzer plus a packet/protocol analyzer and HTTP file rebuilder.
- PacketBoy is a Win9x/NT & Unix packet sniffer analyzer decoder package capable of decoding many of the commonly used LAN protocols.
- PRTG Traffic Grapher Windows software to monitor bandwidth usage and other network parameters via SNMP. Has a builit in packet sniffer. Freeware also available.
- Sniffer resource for product information on both portable and distributed Sniffer protocol analyzers, network troubleshooting white papers, Sniffer University training courses, and free protocol stack posters.
- Sniff'em is a Windows based Packet sniffer, Network analyzer and Network sniffer.
- VSS Monitoring network taps provide a dedicated inline network monitoring solution for use with analyzers, IDSes, IPSes and other test access monitoring devices.
- Ultra Network Sniffer for Windows lists network packets in real-time from multiple network cards and also supports packet capture.
- Unsniff Network Analyzer. Scriptable and extensible network analyzer with fresh new views of protocols URL.
- WildPackets Omni fault analysis platform for optimizing network services and improving uptime on enterprise networks.
Applications/Services/Systems monitoring
- Advanced HostMonitor is a system management tool that continuously monitors servers' availability and performance. In the event of network errors, HostMonitor will alert the network administrator.
- Alchemy Network Monitor monitors network servers: TCP/IP, ICMP, IPX/SPX, Oracle, MS SQL, NT EventLog, SQL query, HTTP URL, NT service state, maintains log file and sends notifications if the server goes down. Also marketed in Europe as Alchemy Eye.
- Alertra Checks (http, https, ping, SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, FTP, TCP) web server from multiple stations around the world.
- AppMonitor simulates defined web transactions, such as customer logins and purchase order fulfillment, up to every five minutes to verify that web applications are available and performing 24/7
- Argent Argent has three products - The Argent Guardian, a real-time monitoring and alerting system for NT/2000 servers as well as SNMP-compliant devices; The Argent Predictor, a trend-analysis product for both NT/2000 servers and SNMP devices; and The Argent Sentinel, a web monitoring product.
- BBMonitor Windows bandwidth test software to monitor bandwidth usage and speeds. LAN and Internet bandwidth meter.
- Chariot evaluates the performance of networked applications, performs stress tests of network devices and predicts networked application performance prior to deployment.
- Cittio provide monitoring of systems, applications, databases, network devices, network traffic and latency.
- CleverEye providea availability monitoring software for servers, network appliances, databases and applications.
- CueVision Windows based too to monitor website, servers and network devices.
- CyberGauge using SNMP automatically creates utilization graphs as well as daily, weekly and monthly QoS and utilzation reports.
- DotCom is an External Web Monitoring Service that brings together Monitoring, Reporting, Notification, Escalation and Analysis for HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, DNS, FTP, ICMP and SOAP applications.
- egInnovations provide Enterprise Management Products with capabilities involving the ability to offer subscription based remote monitoring through a web browser console, real time monitoring and problem diagnosis and proactive alerts.
- Eye-on Bandwidth is a bandwidth monitor designed for scalability, speed and security . It has multiple user levels with different privilegies, and is managed by a web interface.
- EZ-NOC provides a website monitoring tool using distributed servers around the world. It also includes network monitoring tools like: DNS, EMAIL, WEBSITE, SSL, ISP Speed Test, What Is My IP and Whois.
- Ganymede provides performance management for clients,servers, applications, and the network as an integrated system.
- IPCheck Server Monitor Network Up-/Downtime Monitoring Monitors critical network resources and detects system failures or performance problems. Freeware available.
- Network Physics passively monitors network traffic providing utilization by protocol, application, host groups as well as topology, re-try and response time information. Good for real-time monitoring and trouble-shooting, also provides alerts and export of reports to web accessible pages.
- GFI Network Server Monitor Monitors your network & servers for failures and fixes them automatically. Checks Exchange Server, SQL, Oracle, HTTP/FTP, Disk health & space, event logs
- internetVista remotely monitors web sites and Internet services for availability (http, https, smtp, ftp, nntp, tcp). Notifications sent via email and SMS. Monitoring centres in United States and Europe
- MonitorIT monitors, detects, alerts, diagnoses, measures, collects and reports on Windows Servers/Workstations, SNMP & SYSLOG Devices
- MonitorMagic - Server & Network Monitoring is a proactive monitoring/alerting tool for Windows 2003, 2000 and NT servers, workstations and SNMP devices.
- N-able OnDemand MonITor Online provides 24×7 proactive network monitoring through status, notification and performance reporting without any network reconfiguration.
- N-central is an IT governance platform for the mid-enterprise that manages information technology and security services from a business perspective.
- NetMon hardware box that monitors network/service components including: routers; firewalls; file, web, dhcp, dns, syslog servers. Also provides protocol usage, bandwidth utilization, top web users and destinations, latency, up/down time, TCP/IP services.
- Network Security Monitoring Tools
  - Nsauditor is a network security scanner that allows to audit and monitor network for possible vulnerabilities,checks methods that a hacker might use to attack it. Over 45 network tools for monitoring, scanning, sniffing, enumerating and gaining access to machines (access to secured shares and confidential files, also detects and logs network access to shared folders).
  - QRadar isolates the source and identifies corrective measures for dangers hiding in daily network activity.
  - PSentry provides Internet policy control, surveillance and reports in a single tool. Through its management web console, manager can define firewall-like policies over users IM use, file transfers, email, web-surf behaviors.
  - ZoneRanger from Tavve is a secure network management proxy appliance for the DMZ; it proxies SNMP GET/SET, SNMP Traps, syslog, NetFlow, sFlow, IP status, and TCP port status, delivering the proxied traffic to a network management platform or tool.
- NetStatus workgroup level monitoring application designed to be used in situations where you need to monitor anywhere from 1 to 50 servers or devices on a network.
- NetVizor provides network monitoring and surveillance software to track workstations and individual users that may use multiple PC's on a network.
- NetworksA-OK appliance, provides end to end monitoring of your network and applications (web, email, database) performance and security.
- NimTech provides NIME an end-to-end TCPIP performance characterization tool based on a client/server architecture. It allows launching various network tests from & between any location to quantify in real-time the performance of a TCPIP network between two endpoints hosts.
- NPS Network Performance Services provides network, system, application, and security monitoring products and services via a 7x24 Network Operations Center. All products and services include automated and customized alerting, and web based performance reporting.
- Overseer Network Monitor is a W2K network monitor providing easy installation, Microsoft Management Console configuration, and runs as a service to provide rock-solid reliability. Monitors websites, network devices, servers, services, and notifies administrators via Email, pager, cell phone, or net send.
- PagerEnterprise is an automatic system, server and network monitor and notify remote system and network managers when important events occur. It runs on Windows NT/2000 to monitor servers, logfiles, services, SNMP Mibs, routers, TCP/IP, SNMP, disks, programs, web pages, devices, power, and more across Windows NT/2000, Novell NetWare, UNIX, OpenVMS, HP3000, AS/400, IBM, Linux and others.
- PRTG Traffic Grapher Windows software to monitor bandwidth usage and other network parameters via SNMP. Freeware also available.
- RSP is a cross-platform, agent-based network/server monitoring, analysis, & hardware tracking program with a web interface and an API for plugins.
- Server Nanny Network Monitor monitors servers and network devices, sends problem notifications, performs actions, and logs performance data.
- ServicePATH from Trendium provides plug-and-play service intelligence system that can collect and synthesize data from networks, applications / business processes and OSS. This synthesized data model is then used to assess and assure service delivery in real-time. The system identifies anomalies as they occur, pinpointing their cause and analyzing their effects on services and the business. It can also automatically initiate corrective action.
- Integrien features centralized, agentless monitoring of web and data base servers/applications. Used to be SiteAlive from CreationPoint.
- SiteMonitor is a website uptime and measurement tools that verifies the performance of non-transactional websites up to every minute from 25 points of presence around the world.
- Vantage is Compuware's integrated suite of application performance management products, emphasizing response time metrics integrated with end-to-end performance analysis, presented in both technical and business views.
- Vigilix event detection and notification software for applications.
- WatchMouse offers professional remote server monitoring services from 16 locations worldwide: http, https, ftp, pop, imap, dns, etc. Alerting by email, SMS, IM, and pager. Extensive reporting, also useful for SLA monitoring.
- WatchTower system monitoring and management software application that runs within a Web-based portal environment.
- WebWatchBot provides monitoring, notification, and analysis software for web sites and IP devices, providing email alerts, reporting and performance metrics.
Big Brother and its clone Big Sister consists of local clients that test system conditions and the availability of network services, and send these status reports to one or more DISPLAY servers where these reports appear as little dots on a web page, or PAGER servers that notify administrators about system problems.
elkMonitor monitors your sites around the clock from servers across the globe, elkMonitor will alert you to signs of trouble.
DSLReports provide measurement reports (e.g. speed tests, security scans, loss).
Flow Monitoring
- Caligare Flow Inspector from Caligare is a Netflow monitor and analyzer with many graph statistics, low level searching, application recognizer and utilization maps. Available in the US as NetIMonitor through Caligare partner Net US.
- InMon provides traffic flow monitoring tools for high-speed switches. The software is able to monitor tens of thousands of switch ports continuously, producing real-time top flows charts, and site-wide application-level traffic matrices.
- NetDetecor from Nicksun a non-intrusive network security monitoring product that (when deployed as part of your data communications infrastructure) inspects traffic flows, detects the activities of intruders, sets alarms, makes continuous copies of data from the network, and analyzes every packet in the network in real-time at production network traffic rates.
- Netflow from Cisco.
- NetQoS uses NetFlow to identify when and where problems are occurring or occurred, identify viruses using real time reporting, remove unwanted traffic instead of unnecessarily upgrading links, view and plan the impact of applications on the network over time.
- NetIntercept is delivered as a complete system, with hardware and software pre-installed, and captures in real-time and provides later on demand batch analysis of the data.
- Packeteer provides network traffic characterization, using signatures derived from network layers up through 7, it can then use this information to do TCP rate control (using CoS/ToS. DiffServ & MPLS) to ensure timely performance.
- PRTG Traffic Grapher Windows software to monitor bandwidth usage and other network parameters via SNMP. Supports Netflow. Freeware also available.
- sFlow probe from InMon is a monitor/SPAN port probe capable of continuously monitoring application level traffic flows at a full 1Gigabit (over 1,500,000 million packets per second).
FTP
- FastCopy provides reliable, secure, bandwidth controlled, automated, enhanced file transfer.
- Trellian Trellian FTP is a file transfer client that allows you to transfer files between your PC and any FTP server on the Internet.
- WS_FTP for windows provides a fast and easy way to move files securely (with SSL) over the Internet. there is a client and server
HipLinkXS is a one or two-way wireless data and messaging solution that enables software used for network monitoring, field force automation, email, customer support, help desk, to communicate with data enabled wireless devices, including digital cellular phones, PDAs, one-way and two-way pagers.
Holistix Web Manager is software installed inside the firewall that monitors and manages all web system components including web servers, databases, urls, applications, etc. Holistix also has a service, called Remote Monitor, that Measures your site's performance 24 hours a day from monitoring locations around the world.
Internet Control Panel performs checks every five to ten minutes on the availability, performance and content of your website. It also checks other important internet services you depend on; email, file transfer and authorization processes.
Internet Periscope includes a wide array of tools including security, that allow System Administrators to "see" how well their hosts are functioning on the Internet.
ISDNwatch is an ISDN network management suite for your ISDN routers.
Keynote Systems is a supplier of software and services for measuring and managing the responsiveness of web-based applications. KeyNote RedAlert is aWeb site monitoring service that can perform end-to-end checks of your a site every 5 or 15 minutes. It can also monitor DNS, email, news & telnet servers.
MeasureNet.
MeterWare for Windows 95/NT & UNIX from Technically Elite.
Metrica Network Performance Reporting (NPR) is a performance monitoring toolset being used by telecoms operators to manage the quality of service and the capacity of their networks.
NATManager.
NEPM (Network Equipment Performance Monitor is a two part software system that captures and analyzes logged performance data from IP networked equipment and reports it via e-mail and web pages. It can be hosted on either a Unix or WinNT system or a combination of these.
NetArx Network Monitoring System monitors client systems and reports information to the Netarx Network Operations Center ("NOC"); a fully staffed vault operating 24 hours a day. The NOC notifies on-site contacts of service failures and proactively detected potential problems.
NetPredict helps you monitor, predict and optimize the performance of distributed business applications.
Network Health family from Concord.
NetMedic.
Net-One-1, monitors your company's network devices 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
NetOps provides a set of tools for monitoring, logging and reporting network status, focussing on preventive maintenance.
NetReality provides monitoring and QoS shaping on all OSI layers, from 1 - 7 on WAN links. Real-time and historical reports are provided.
NetScout Drawing on information generated by NetScout's application-aware probes, intelligent active agents and data collected directly from network devices strategically placed throughout the WAN, SAN, and LAN, the nGenius Performance Management System monitors, troubleshoots, performs capacity planning and reports on the application traffic flowing across the network.
NextPointS3 provides the ability t define, measure, baseline and report on service levels at many levels from the core network to end user applications. PacketStorm IP Network Emulators reproduce the unfavorable conditions of IP Networks and WANs in a controllable and repeatable lab setting.
PingGraph is a multi-threaded graphical TCP/IP network monitoring and diagnostic tool for Windows 95 and NT.
Procom+ ISDN/Modem monitoring
ResponseNetworks provides tools for network service level monitoring and measurements.
RIPmon provides remote monitoring over IP networks using an agent that physically connects to and communicates with any element through LAN ports, serial ports and/or contact closures. Once connected the agent units interact with the device in native format and translate user queries into SNMP and HTTP responses.
ROMmon develops easily deployable online network performance metric (passive and active) monitoring system for networking professionals. The system's emphasis are on data aggregation, high availability and high scalability.
SAA Service Assurance Agent built into Cisco IOS release 12.0(5)T allows measuring response time, net resources, availability, jitter, connect time, packet loss and application performance.
SftpDrive Maps any SSH server as a Windows network drive. Provides transparent and secure integration of the remote filesystem into Windows without requiring additional server software or configuration.
Shunra develops testing and evaluation tools for internet and intranet based network technologies and products.
Silverback's InfoCare delivers real-time and historical information on faults, assets, performance and security across networks, systems and applications through a unified Web-based interface.
SNMP Tools:
- AdventNet SNMP API can be used to build system management, application management and network management applications and applets. It includes class libraries and Java beans for Java SNMP development, as well as a complete MibBrowser for interacting with SNMP enabled devices. The AdventNet Agent Toolkit Java Edition provides a complete GUI-based development environment to build standalone SNMP agents, Multi-Protocol agents, and standalone TL1 agents. Also see AdventNet ManageEngine JMX Studio a 100% Java-based development environment that provides Java, J2EE, and EAI middleware application developers, the ability to build JMX and SNMP-based manageability for their applications. It also comes with options for other protocol adaptors like HTML, RMI, CORBA, SOAP, and AMI adaptor for plugging into different types of management consoles.
- LoriotPro a generic SNMP manager
- MIW Multiple Interface Watcher is a graph utility that shows the utilisation of up to 20 different interfaces. The data is requested from the devices using SNMP. MIW is an advanced development of Interface Traffic Indicator that focuses more on the utilization overview of many interfaces than on much information of one interface.
- Open NerveCenter is a network management platform, based on SNMP, that is extensible using PERL. NerveCenter correlates events in real time from network and security devices, UNIX and NT systems and applications to improve availability, performance and security.
- OPENXTRA has a set of SNMP utilities.
- Quallaby provides PROVISO 2.0, network monitoring and service assurance solution for network service providers.
- SNMP Explorer provides a tree view of your SNMP managable devices, provides a way to talk to or from the devices, provides a flexible log of transactions, and permits you to transact with the devices with simple yet powerful scripts.
- SNMP Informant is installed on Windows hosts to enable them to provide SNMP information.
- SNMP Research
- TrapBlaster SNMP trap management engine that receives, filters and converts SNMP traps. They may then be forwarded to your network management applications.
- Unbrowse SNMP. A visual SNMP MIB browser, compiler, walker.
- WinTDS monitors IP-SNMP devices and gives a variety of real-time views of the network status.
Shiva Network Manager
Shiva InterNet Manager
StatScope from IP Sciences is an outsourced service providing a customized IP network monitoring and reporting capability.
TelAlert from CalAmp a package for enunciating alerts and managing via pagers, email, pop up windows etc.
Third Watch Server Monitor will allow you to monitor all of your critical servers and services on an IP network and be notified of any changes in their status. It is a server monitoring program using TCP/IP. It can monitor via Ping, HTTP, FTP or any other TCP/IP port.
Topology/Traceroute based tools
- EdgeScape from Akamai, maps user IP addresses to their geographic and network point of origin. This information is assembled into a vast knowledge base and made available to Edgescape customers.
- GeoBoy Allows you to view traces on a flat map or 3D globe. Incorporate geographical features such as cities, rivers, and political boundaries. Zoom in on areas of interest. Save and restore trace data. Rotate and manipulate maps. Update and customize geographical location cache files.
- NeoTrace provides graphical traceroute information.
- PingPlotter is an enhanced traceroute program for Windows 95/98/NT/W2K/XP.
- Route Explorer provides visibility, analysis and diagnosis of IP networks from a routing point of view
- VisualRoute a GUI based traceroute for Windows.
Triticom has software based network protocol analyzers, LAN traffic monitors, RMON probes, and an SNMP manager.
USR Total Control.
View2000 runs under Windows NT and has the ability to monitor multi-vendor network equipment configurations, using flat file databases for speed and Oracle RDBMS for SQL report queries, and NOT using SNMP.
Viola Networks provides NetAlly and other tools that include a suite of tests to provide "true" Service Level Management (SLM), the ability to audit policies and Quality of Service (QoS), and automatically conduct preventive maintenance tests to discover hidden problems in the network.
VisualPulse from DataMetrics provide realtime and historical reports on RTT & loss.
Vivere Networks have a wireless sensor that monitor and analyze multi-AP topologies in real-time, including 802.11 packets for all access points in range as well as other IP network traffic.
VoIP (Voice over IP)
- Prognosis provides systems management software for performance monitoring of IP telephony, VOIP, availability, network management, Windows, UNIX and Linux.
- QOVIA provides Voice over IP monitoring and management, sends alerts when it predicts call quality will be affected.
- Telchemy provides Voice over IP (VoIP) passive call quality monitoring and active Quality of Service (QoS) management. Designed specifically to be embedded into VoIP end-systems, management devices and DSPs, Telchemy's non-intrusive monitoring technology, VQmonTM, is the only technology to model time-varying impairments and their effects on end-user-perceived quality in real-time.
- ZTI provide LANTraffic V2 and IP Traffic Test & Measure software testing tools for automatic generation of TCP and UDP traffic.

Public Domain or Free Network Monitoring Tools [Contents]

ANL Web100 based Network Configuration Tester tests the reliablity and operational status of your network link.
Application Monitoring
- Alvias provides free monitoring of HTTP, TCP/IP port, ping, SMTP, POP# FTP, web page defacements from multiple networks around the world.
- H.323 Beacon is a tool that can be used to measure, qualify and troubleshoot performance of H.323 Videoconference sessions both at the network and host levels (end-to-end)
- MossHe (MOnitoring with SSH Environment) is a simple, lightweight (both in size and system requirements) server monitoring package designed for secure and in-depth monitoring of a handful of typical/critical internet systems.
- System and Network Monitor (SNM) is a tool to monitor, graph and alert on computing devices and services. SNM runs on a Windows or Linux device on your network, 24 hours every day. The recorded data is accessed via a user friendly menu-driven web browser, e-mail alerts are raised if a user determined threshold fails. Sysmon is a network monitoring tool designed to provide high performance and accurate network monitoring of various application protocols. Currently supported protocols include SMTP, IMAP, HTTP, TCP, UDP, NNTP, and PING tests.
aslookup tool searches the sequence of AS number specified with the parameter from IRR and indicates the first line of Description of AS Object.
arpwatch, if this link fails then you can FTP it from ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/arpwatch.tar.Z (since this is the master repository it may also be a more recent version than the one above).
FDBGet This little gadget will try to retrieve the forwarding table entries (Mac to interface number) of switches (layer 2 devices). This comes in handy when you want to know to which interface of a switch a particular NIC (e.g. computer) is attached to. Now suppports parameters for command line use.
Dig
Netdisco is an Open Source web-based network management tool. Designed for moderate to large networks, configuration information and connection data for network devices are retrieved by SNMP. With Netdisco you can locate the switch port of an end-user system by IP or MAC address. Data is stored using a SQL database for scalability and speed. It also provide optional use of the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP).
D-ITG (Distributed Internet Traffic Generator) is a platform (collection of tools) capable of producing traffic (network, transport and application layer) and of accurately replicating appropriate stochastic processes for both IDT (Inter Departure Time) and PS (Packet Size) random variables (exponential, uniform, cauchy, normal, pareto, ...).
FingerPrinting
- NetworkActive Port Scanner a network scanning tool that can perform UDP and TCP port scans and subnet scans, whois, DNS-dig, ping, protocol scans, and TCP/IP stack fingerprinting.
- Nmap is a utility for port scanning of large networks, although it works fine for single hosts. OPENXTRA has a version (NMapWin) for Windows.
- TBIT TCP Behavior Inference Tool
- sscan performs probes against victim hosts to identify services which may potentially be vulnerable to exploitation.
FTP is the standard File Transfer Protocol. See also Commercial FTP tools.
- Autobuf is an auto tuning-enabled FTP client and server. The client, a modification of the NcFTP Client, enables Auto Tuning to calculate optimal window sizes before files are transferred. The client is compatible with most other FTP servers. The server, a modification of the WuFtp FTP server, allows connecting clients to reset its buffer size dynamically by using a SITE option.
- bbcp a secure peer to peer file copy program supporting large windows and multiple streams. See also the presentation and the PDF paper.
- bbftp is designed to quickly transfer files across a wide area network. The package comprises of a server and clients. It also provides compression and secures the transmission of the username and password by using the cryptolib of the OpenSSL project.
- BitTorrent an aggressive peer-to-peer file transfer protocol/implementation.
- Firehose firehose uses multiple interfaces to stripe a bulk data transfer (it's geared towards files, the home-grown protocol includes sending a filename and the client requires a file) over multiple network interfaces.
- GSIFTP is an ftp client and server with built in kerberos and GSI (globus) security, and also allows you to set the TCP buffers on both the client and server.
- HPN-SSH provides a patch to remove the performance bottlenecks in OpenSSH.
- SafeTP operates by installing a transparent proxy in the Windows networking stack which detects outgoing FTP connections from any Windows FTP client, and silently secures them using modern cryptographic techniques.
- NcFTP has a popular free FTP client that adds support for firewalls, intelligent ls caching, background and scheduled processing, and Microsoft Windows.
- RFT Reliable File Transfer Service is a service that allows byte streams to be transferred in a reliable manner. Reliability, in this context, means that problems of less than a certain, user defined magnitude are dealt with automatically. i.e. problems like dropped connections, machine reboots, temporary network outages, etc are dealt with automatically (usually via retry) until they either resume or meet some "ultimate failure" condition
- WU-FTPD is a popular FTP server from Washington University.
Internet Detective is a small Windows application that offers computer users easy access to the status and capabilities of their current network connection by providing information about advanced network capabilities, including connectivity to an Internet2 backbone network, an estimate of available bandwidth and multicast capabilities.
Lachesis a tool from Intel to monitor and report on response time and packet loss to "landmark" Internet sites. It is based on the publically available tool Imeter.
LinkRank BGP dynamics visualization tool "LinkRank" also presented at Nanog 32 at Reston, VA (http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0410/lad.html).
Mapping tools
- GeoPlot is a light-weight java applet which allows users to create a geographical image of a data set.
- Mapnet from NLANR/CAIDA is a tool for visualizing the infrastructure of multiple backbone providers simultaneously (Mapnet), and for updating and correcting information that may be invalid or out of date (Mapnet Update)
- NetGeo is a database and collection of Perl scripts used to map IP addresses, domain names and AS numbers to geographical locations.
Monitoring Infrastructures (also see Comparison of Some Internet Active E2E Measurement Infrastructures)
- Cheops is an Open Source Network User Interface designed to unify your network utilities.
- JetMon is a client-server link monitoring tool for NOC operations, written in Java. The server pings a list of network devices, reporting the state to the clients.
- Ganglia is a scalable distributed monitoring system for high-performance computing systems such as clusters and Grids.
- Mon is a general-purpose resource monitoring system, which can be used to monitor network service availability, server problems, environmental conditions such as the temperature in a room, or any number of things.
- Nagios (used to be NetSaint) is an open source host, service and network monitoring program. It is designed to run under Linux, although it should work under most other *NIX variants. It can run either as a normal process or as a daemon, intermittently running checks on various services that you specify. The actual service checks are performed by external "plugins" which return service information to Nagios. Several CGI programs are included with Nagios in order to allow you to view the current service status, history, etc. via a web browser.
- NetMeter This application provides an integrated graphical interface for a set of tools that allows the measurement of QoS parameters over IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Network Performance Meter (netmeter) is an Tcl/Tk application which tries to solve these tasks in a flexible and modular way.
- Network Performance Advisor is a single application which integrates the measuring, analyzing, and displaying of network performance statistics.
- NIMI
- OSSMON is a web-based monitoring package based on OSSWEB application framework. It supports SNMP monitoring as well as specific services like POP3, SMTP, Ping.
- PingER End-to-end active measurement using ping to monitor end-to-end performance of Internet links.
- SCAMPI SCAMPI is a platform for passive monitoring. It can use several different hardware monitoring adapters (SCAMPI adapters developed in the project, DAG cards produced by Endace and regular NIC cards). It provides MAPI (Monitoring API) as a high-level abstraction of passive monitoring for easy creation of portable monitoring applications.
- Scriptroute is a flexible network measurement and debugging system. Measurements are expressed as scripts that run as an ordinary user, and a priviledged daemon schedules and manages the packet exchange. The goal is to allow any user to connect to any server and execute any safe network measurement.
- Simple Infrastructure Capacity Monitor (SICMD) is a tool to monitor, graph and alert the capacity of computing devices. SICM runs on a Windows or Linux device on your network, 24 hours every day. The recorded data is accessed via a user friendly menu-driven web browser. E-mail alerts are raised if a user determined number of queries fail.
- Website Monitoring is a free website monitoring application released under the GPL that provides an uptime monitoring tool.
- Wombat monitors the availability and operation of websites. When your website goes down or produces a defineable error, WOMbot will automatically notify you via SMS and Email.
- Zenoss is an integrated, easy-to-use IT infrastructure monitoring software product produced by the Open Source Community.
mrtg Multi Router Traffic Grapher. Also available from OPENXTRA.
NetLogger tools to make it easy to instrument distributed applications and visualize the results.
NetNow a prototype tool providing realtime NAP & ISP backbone delay & packet loss performance statistics.
netstat
NetStat Live is a small, easy to use TCP/IP protocol monitor which can be used to see your exact throughput on both incoming and outgoing data.
NetTest Nettest is a secure, real-time network monitoring utility. The nettest framework is designed to incorporate existing and new network tests, and be run as a daemon or an interactive process. Requests for network tests are received via a SSL connection or the user interface and are authorized using an ACL list (in the future authorization using Akenti will also be supported).
Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) a web100 Java applet developed to test the reliablity and operational status of your desktop computer and network connection.
ns network simulator is a discrete event simulator targeted at networking research.
NIST Net allows a single Linux PC set up as a router to emulate a wide variety of network conditions.
Ntop is a Unix tool that shows the network usage, similar to the popular top Unix command.
NOCOL
nslookup
OWAMP One Way Active Measurement Program from Internet 2. provides one way delay measurements.
Packet capture tools. (see also commercial capture tools) Before using these tools on your site you should check with your network security people.
- Analyzer is a fully configurable analyzer program. It was developed in Win32 environment. It can be used with both Windows 95/98 and Windows NT/2000 platforms. It is composed by three parts: a graphical interface, an analysis engine and a capture program.
- Argus the network Audit Record Generation and Utilization System. The Argus Open Project is focused on developing network activity audit strategies that can do real work for the network architect, administrator and network user. It is a Unix based Real Time Flow Monitor designed to track and report on the status and performance of all network transactions seen in a data network traffic stream.
- Bro intrusion detection system contains a number of protocol analyzers that can munch on tcpdump traces (or live traffic, of course) and extract high-level application events from the reassembled TCP/UDP streams.
- Cflowd is an experimental tool to collect data from Cisco's netflow export feature.
- Crypto-PAn is a cyrptography-based sanitization tool for network trace owners to anonymize the IP addresses in their traces in a prefix-preserving manner.
- Ethereal (now known as Wireshark) is a free network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows (including Win2K). It allows you to examine data from live network or from a capture file on disk. Also Packetyzer provides a Packetyzer new Windows User Interface that will available under the terms of the GNU Public License.
- flstats is program for extracting flow statistics from trace files created using the -w argument to tcpdump.
- Natas is an opensource windows 2000 network sniffer.
- Netflow Monitor is tool with a nice web interface for processing and evaluating NetFlow Exports from CISCO routers.
- NetraMet and other realtime flow meters designed for Internet accounting including NetraMet (a traffic meter), NeMac (a combined manager & meter_reader) and NIFTY (a traffic flow analyzer).
- PasTmon is a passive network application response time monitor utilising packet capture (via libpcap), tracking sessions maintaining transaction state and collecting metrics of server/network response times, segment size negotiation and TCP window size advertisements.
- Plab is a software platform for packet capture and analysis. It is capable to extract, either from live traffic or from file traces, Inter Packet Times (IPT) and Packet Sizes (PS) inside conversations between couples of hosts. Plab runs under Linux and FreeBSD. It tries to use as few processing resources as possible and it is capable of analyzing traffic traces of hundreds millions packets associated to millions of conversations.
- sniffit,
- Snoop is similar to tcpdump and is bundled with the Sun/Solaris Unix operating system.
- Snuffle is a measurement tool for capturing the protocol messages, internal protocol states and to measure implementation performance on networking nodes. Snuffle consists of a set of modules placed in the kernel, device driver and user space. Currently measuring probes for UDP, IP and IEEE 802.11b MAC are implemented.
- TansuTCP (TT) is a TCP trace utility which listens on a local port and then forwards tcp packets to another server. You can see and save binary / text data to a file or you can load binary data from a file.
- Tcpdpriv is a program for eliminating confidential information from packets collected on a network interface (or, from trace files created using the -w argument to tcpdump).
- tcpdump. There is also a version for Windows 9x, NT & 2000.
- TCPurify is a packet sniffer/capture program similar to tcpdump, but with much reduced functionality. What sets TCPurify apart from other, similar programs is its focus on privacy. TCPurify is designed from the ground up to protect the privacy of users on the sniffed network as much as possible.
- TCPshow is a Unix based program that parses the output file of TCPdump into human readable text.
- Tcptrace is a TCP dump file analysis tool written by Shawn Ostermann at Ohio University.
- trafd is a traffic accounting daemon for Linux and FreeBSD, built on top of libpcap, with accompanying tools to manage its data.
- trafshow continuously displays information regarding packet traffic on the configured network interface that match the boolean expression.
- Tstat TCP statistic and analysis tool (Unix/Linux based) - allows collecting network performance indexes from passive traffic analysis (i.e. packet traces), at both network (IP) layer, and at transport (TCP/UDP/RTP/RTCP) layer. It can be used to persistently monitor links, thanks to the integration with the RRD database.
- WinPcap is an architecture for packet capture and network analysis for the Win32 platforms, based on the model of BPF and libpcap for UNIX. See also libcap for windows and libpcap for Unix.
Path Characterization & Bandwidth Estimation
- ABwE Available Bandwidth Estimator.
- Bandwidth Estimation Tools a compendium of tools maintained by Sally Floyd.
- Bing is a point-to-point bandwidth measurement tool (hence the 'b'), based on ping. You can download it from here
- Bprobe & cprobe provide measurement of bottleneck and congestion bandwidth using ping.
- Clink is a tool for estimating Internet link characteristics.
- Nettimer is a project to do end-to-end network performance measurement. It can listen passively to existing network traffic or actively probe the network
- Pathchar is a tool to infer the characteristics of Internet paths. There are some usage notes from CAIDA. There is also a SIGCOMM '99 paper on Using pathchar to estimate Inernet link characteristics by Allen Downey.
- PathChirp
- Pathload measures the available bandwidth of a link.
- Pathneck is an active probing tool that can detect bottleneck location of network path. It only needs single end control, and has relatively small probing overhead (33.6KB for one probing in the default setting).
- Pathprobe is a MIB tool that uses TCP and web100 to probe and characterize the path between two hosts. The goal of this tool is to run hop-by-hop tests to determine if the paths along the way are capable of supporting the desired end-to-end target bandwidth between the sender and receiver.
- Pathrate measures end-to-end capacity
- Pchar an independent implementation of Van Jacobsens pathchar with more intelligible output. Available for FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux, IRIX
- Pipechar a tool for reporting dynamic network characteristics in particular the bottleneck bandwidth.
- STAB short for spatio-temporal available bandwidth estimator, locate congested links on an end-to-end network path.
Ping
- fping is similar to ping but is optimized to ping a large number of hosts in parallel. You may be able to download from here.
- Fpinger Visualizes your computer network as an animated screen that lets you perform administration functions, monitoring, pinging, scanning, exporting, looking for software and hardware over the network.
- FREEping will ping all your 2003-XP-2000-NT servers (or any other IP address) in free-definable intervals. FREEping will send you a popup when one of the 2003-XP-2000-NT servers stops responding
- Just-ping pings from 8 locations worldwide to a host you select.
- MTR combines the functionality of the 'traceroute' and 'ping' programs in a single network diagnostic tool.
- MultiPing Grapher MultiPing Grapher is a further development of Perfping with the ability to graph up to 10 different ICMP results. Includes logging and average calculation.
- pathping is built into Windows 2000, it pings all nodes along a route.
- Perfping a tool for testing availability, response times and performance using ICMP. Writes data to a text file for later interpretation with e.g. Excel. Allows you to change IP address, ICMP timeout and data size during runtime. Comes with a nice little graph for realtime testing.
- Ping 'Classic' and the Nikhef Ping variant and its man page.
- The SLAC/HEPNRC PingER suite of ping tools for monitoring response time, packet loss etc. are available via the PingER Tools from the ICFA-NTF WG on Monitoring page.
- Pingroute.pl is a simple Perl script to ping all nodes along a traceroute and provide min, max, avg response time, plus packet loss analysis for 100 and 1400 byte packets. The source is freely available for SunOS, Solaris, Linux, AIX and Digital OSF1.
- TCP based pings use TCP to figure out the Round Trip Time (RTT)
  - Synack measures the Round Trip Time to establish a TCP session using the SYN request and SYN/ACK response, allows specification of the TCP port.
  - Tping also also can ping more than one host at a time.
- Traceping measures the packet loss to nodes along a route.
- TRIUMF's Visual Ping provides a Web page that the user can make ping transfer rate measurements between the Web server and the browser.
- hping2 is a network tool able to send custom ICMP/UDP/TCP packets and to display target replies like ping do with ICMP replies.
- Zinger a small Perl program that pings the closest router on network and reports any loss of connection. When it detects a problem, it does two things. First, it announces the problem over the PC speakers. Then, it writes the time and date to a log file. When the connection comes back up, the program writes another entry in the log and announces the happy event over the speakers again.
Qcheck checks network response time, throughput, and streaming performance, by means of thin agents installed on hosts that are to be checked.
RANCID monitors a router's (or device's) configuration, including software and hardware (cards, serial numbers, etc), using CVS. Rancid logs into each of the devices in a router table file, runs various commands, chomps the output, and emails any differences ( sample) from the previous collection to a mail list.
Rider measures available bandwidth, latency, and streaming performance (including noticing consecutive lost packets -- a key measure for VoIP) using lightweight performance agents that include a built-in web server. Using a web browser for a GUI provides many extra useful features, such as the ability to save and print results, and the ability to bookmark tests (and even make a page of tests for your intranet.)
RRDtool (Round Robin Database tool) is a system to store and display time-series data.
- Bronc is a package of utilities that allow you to gather and visualize data in the form of graphs. It uses RRD and is similar in function to Cricket and MRTG, though it is claimed to be faster.
- Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality.
- Cricket is a high performance, flexible system for monitoring trends in time-series data. The collector runs from cron every 5 minutes (by default), and stores data into a file-based database managed by the RRD Tool. Later, when you want to check on the data you have collected, you can use a web-based interface to view graphs of the data.
- Host Grapher II is a light program that uses RRD to draw graphics of Hosts for Network, Processes, CPU, Memory etc. Writing addicional plugins is quite simple. Works on all major UNIX platforms and on win32.
- NetMRG is a tool for network monitoring, reporting, and graphing. Based on RRDTOOL, NetMRG is capable of creating graphs of any parameter of your network.
- NMIS Network Management Information System is an SNMP polling and statistics viewer front-end to Tobi Oetiker's RRDTool.
- Orca is a tool useful for plotting arbitrary data from text files onto a directory on a Web server.
- remstats Remstats is a system of programs to: gather data from servers and routers, store and maintain the data for long periods, produce graphs and web-pages tieing them together, and monitor the data for anomalous behavious and issue alerts. This software is a pretty good hack to wrap around rrdtool as collector and presenter, easy to set up with not to much prerequesits. It only needs a some perlmodules and perl. Its under GPL and is able to maintain and monitor big environments.
- SmokePing measures latency and packet loss in your network. Uses RRDtool to maintain a longterm datastore and to draw pretty graphs giving up to the minute information on the state of each network connection.
- Torrus is designed to be the universal data series processing framework. Its has a scalable hierarchical design, with an application-independent core, and highly customizable architecture. Suitable for small installations and for big enterprise or carrier networks. Although most of our users deploy Torrus for SNMP monitoring, it might be useful for data series of any nature. Tobi Oetiker's RRDtool is used for data storage.
RouteViews is a tool for Internet operators to obtain real-time information about the global routing system from the perspectives of several different backbones and locations around the Internet.
SNMP:
- CMU SNMP or for a Perl5 extension module
- EzMgt MIB Browser is a free tool that includes a MIB Editor, SNMP Query View and SNMP Tracer View.
- Interface Traffic Indicator Interface Traffic Indicator, a graph utility to measure incoming and outgoing traffic on an interface in bits/sec, bytes/sec or utilization. Works on all SNMP-capable devices (computers, NICs, switches, routers, etc.) with adjustable poll interval down to three seconds. You can use this program in a professional network environment to monitor selected network interfaces (even backplane ports if the device provides the information) or you can monitor your home network or cable/modem/ISDN connection to the internet.
- Mibbrowser Mibbrowser is a tool that retrieves all MIB data (OIDs and values) from SNMP-capable network devices. It can be used to find out what kind of MIB data is available from a device.
- STC is a free command line tool to get and compare, side by side, SNMP tables entries from different computers. The output is always in XML format which is by default associated with a XSL script. So it can be processed later or immediately viewed with a WEB browser.
- Tricklet man pages and code
- UCD SNMP public domain tools
Spong Son of Pong (spong) is a simple system monitoring package, that will monitor system attributes and network services on a variety of machines. It will gather status reports and contact staff if there are problems. It will also summarize the information and display it via a web interface
Sting end-to-end active monitoring tool that estimates one way loss through careful manipulation and observation of TCP behavior.
TCPtune a TCP stack tuner for Windows
telnet
Thruput tools (also see the FTP tools):
- bulk is achievable performance measurement tool (iperf-like), which allows real-time monitoring of any socket options and their members, particularly TCP_INFO option, which provides useful clues for performance debugging. You can monitor rtt, cwnd, ssthresh, retransmits, etc. down to per sent segment, if you wish. The tool does not require root access or any kernel patch (even though it works with an accompanying AIMD patch for per-socket AIMD tuning). Download
- gen_send/gen_recv a simple UDP trafic generator.
- I2perf
- IPerf is a tool for measuring maximum TCP and UDP bandwidth, reminiscent of tools such as ttcp. It has been written to overcome the shortcomings of those aging tools.
- The MGEN toolset provides programs for sourcing/sinking real-time multicast/unicast UDP/IP traffic flows.
- netperf maintained by HP, is a general measure of performance of a network. Provides a measure of latency between request and response of generic transactions across a TCP/IP network.
- Nuttcp is a tool for measuring TCP achievable throughput.
- RUDE stands for Real-time UDP Data Emitter and CRUDE for Collector for RUDE. RUDE is a small and flexible program that generates traffic to the network, which can be received and logged on the other side of the network with the CRUDE.
- Tcpspray sends data to either the discard or echo TCP service on the specified host and prints the average throughput.
- thrulay measures achievable UDP and TCP single stream throughputs (currently only supports Linix) also provides RTT estimates.
- TReno a tool to function as a basis for a formal bulk transfer metric for the Internet.
- ttcp
- UDPmon This is a set of tools using UDP and TCP to give estimates of the request-response latency and bandwidth found in the route between the two end nodes. See also Some Tools used for Testing Network Behaviour.
Traceroute (also see the commercial traceroute products)
- man pages, where to get it, the traceroute NIKHEF variant and traceroute servers.
- Gtrace is a traceroute visualization tool that uses a combination of methods to either determine or guess at the physical location of a node in the traceroute path. It is flexible enough to support addition of new databases, heuristics to map IP addresses to physical location and maps.
- mturoute is a small Windows tool to determine the path MTU between you and a specified host. In traceroute mode it will additionally show you the mtu at every hop between you and the specified host.
- NeoTrace provides graphical traceroute information.
- pathping a Windows NT utility to do a traceroute and then measure to each node along the route.
- Prtraceroute is a version of traceroute, from the RIPE Internet Routing Registry toolset, that presents routing policy information together with the real time packet trace obtained from traceroute. It adds AS information to the normal traceroute output, making use of Routing Registry (RR) database information.
- Scamper is a program that conducts traceroute to large numbers of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in parallel to fill a specified packets-per-second rate.
- TCPtraceroute uses TCP to a port at the end node to do a traceroute.
- The tracepath for Linux is like traceroute but does not need superuser and has no fancy options. It does discover the PMTU along the route.
- Traceroute-nanog has additional features like AS lookup, TOS support, microsecond timestamps, path MTU discovery, parallel probing and others.
- VisualRoute a GUI based traceroute for Windows.
Zabbix is software for application and network monitoring. Zabbix supports both polling and trapping techniques to collect data from monitored hosts. Flexible notification mechanism allows easy and quckly configure email notifications for pre-defined events.

Web Benchmarking Tools [Contents]

WCAT is a Web Capacity Analysis Tool freely available from Microsoft.
WebStone from MindCraft measures raw throughput of a standard HTTP workload, see also the NCSA Web Server Performance page.
Web Server Stress Tool is a powerful HTTP client/server test application, designed to pinpoint critical performance issues in your web site or web server that may prevent optimal experience for your site's visitors. Supports SSL.
WWW performance monitoring

Auxiliary Tools to Enable Monitoring, Analysis, Report Creation or Simulation [Contents]

HighTower security solutions are designed to help you improve organizational security, and at the same time, reduce the burden of manual process facing security administrators.
GDChart Easy to use C, Perl, Python APIs, high performance library to create charts and graphs in PNG, GIF and WBMP format
ghostscript
GIF Manipulation and Animation
- Alchemy Mindwork's GIF Construction Set is a shareware tool for Windows.
- \ GIFBuilder is freeware for the Mac.
- WhirlGIF is a UNIX command-line utility to take a series of GIF files and output an animated GIF.
Plotting tools
- Gnuplot a command-line driven interface function plotting utility. Also see the demos.
- Ploticus non-interactive plotting package for Unix & Windows. Has mouseover and mouse click capabilities.

Analysis & Visualization tools
- Analyse-it is a software add-in for Microsoft Excel that includes over 30 parametric & non-parametric statistics, including descriptive statistics, box-whisker plots, correlation, multiple linear regression analysis, ANOVA, & chi-square statistics for general statistical research.
- BestFit is a Windows program that finds the distribution curve which best describes your data set.
- Maple.
- MatLab.
- PV-Wave.
- SAS.
- S-Plus.
Network Simulator (ns).
Xplot.

Further Information [Contents]

CAIDA Measurement Tool Taxonomy provides a preliminary overview of Internet and TCP/IP performance measurement tools and efforts and distinguishes tools used to measure the Internet from general TCP/IP performance tools.
CIAC's List of Security Tools
Gigamon University provides podcasts of passive monitoring for protocol analysis, RMON probe, network troubleshooting, application performance, web experience management, network and application discovery, network security, intrusion detection, access control, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and PCI compliance auditing, forensics and packet capturing and storage, deep packet inspection, VoIP analysis and IPTV service assurance, etc.
Network Performance Measurement Tools: An Internet2 Cookbook
Computing Vendors Online.
LBNL's Network Research Group Includes links to lots of their documents and tools.
Internet Tools
Netspec a Network Performance Evaluation and Experimentation Tool from the University of Kansas.
Network-Automation mailing list is for discussions of issues related to automating network configuration and management, including (but not limited to) methods, mechanisms, techniques, philosophies, policies, and products (in general; questions about specific products should be directed to the mailing list dedicated to that particular product).
NIH's Network and Network Monitoring Software list.
NLANR Advanced Applications Database is an online resource that provides access to information about networked research and education projects, applications, and resources that are related. You can view information about the more than 2,400 projects entered in the AAD by using keyword searches or preformatted reports.
Routing Arbiter ToolSet
Terena Guide to network resource Tools a guide to network tools and innovation for users of all levels of expertise.
ServerFiles.com is a software directory for network administrators and IT professionals that are looking for networking & server software for Windows 2003, Windows 2000 or Windows NT.
TruePath will work with your teams to define what monitoring software packages (if any) are needed. They then configure and maintain the monitoring tools and your teams use them.
WebAttack a large collection of Internet Tools.
WindowsNetworking.com provides tutorials on various Windows networking related topics such as setting up Windows NT/XP/2000/2003 networks, troubleshooting, connectivity and more. Also includes a comprehensive archive of reviewed networking software.
WWW Resources for Communications & Networking Technologies from eIT.in presents a comprehensive listing of networking and communication resources from around the web. It contains over a thousand web links for hundreds of networking and communications related topics.
The X Consortium's Anonymous FTP Archive.