A(n) ____________ has the capability to monitor network activity.

Network administrators need to employ tools to protect their network and prevent malicious actors from gaining access. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) are categories of tools commonly used for this purpose. It’s important to know the difference between them, which are best for certain types of organizations, and how to maximize their effectiveness.

In this article, we’ll go over the differences between the two systems to help you decide which is best for your organization.

Basic overview: IDS vs. IPS

An intrusion detection system is more of an alerting system that lets an organization know if anomalous or malicious activity is detected. An intrusion prevention system takes this detection a step forward and shuts down the network before access can be gained or to prevent further movement in a network.

What is an IDS? Five types and their functions

An IDS monitors and detects behavior across a network and should be considered a diagnostic solution. The system, if it detects something problematic, will alert the security team so they can investigate.

The five types of IDS leverage two types of detections:

• Signature-based detection: Signature-based IDS solutions alert administrators based on pre-existing signatures that refer to a type of attack or malicious behavior. This allows for accurate and automated alerting because the system references an existing signature database.

This kind of system often looks for indicators of compromise such as scanning file hashes, traffic going to known malicious domains, malicious byte sequences, and even email subject lines that are known phishing attacks.

• Anomaly-based detection: Anomaly-based IDS solutions are considered more effective than signature-based solutions because they’re monitoring malicious or suspicious patterns of behavior. This allows them to detect new kinds of threats, which is nearly impossible for signature-based systems.

Anomaly-based detection is often looking for behavior that differs from an established baseline. For example, if you have set normal working hours for employees, an anomaly-based IDS may flag a login occurring over the weekend. The system may also alert you based on the amount of traffic connecting to your network, or new devices being added without the right authorization.

IDS types vary based on where they’re monitoring threats and how they’re detecting them.

1. Network intrusion detection systems (NIDS)

A network intrusion detection system will monitor traffic through various sensors — placed either via hardware or software — on the network itself. The system will then monitor all traffic going through devices across the multiple sensor points.

2. Host intrusion detection systems (HIDS)

A HIDS is placed directly on devices to monitor traffic, giving network administrators a bit more control and flexibility. However, this can become burdensome depending on the organization’s size. If an organization is only leveraging HIDS, the company would have to account for every new device added within the organization, leaving room for error while also taking up a lot of time.

3. Protocol-based intrusion detection systems (PIDS)

A protocol-based IDS is often placed at the front of a server and monitors traffic flowing to and from devices. This is leveraged to secure users browsing the internet.

4. Application protocol-based intrusion detection systems (APIDS)

An APIDS is similar to a protocol-based system but monitors traffic across a group of servers. This is often leveraged on specific application protocols to specifically monitor activity, helping network administrators better segment and classify their network monitoring activities.

5. Hybrid intrusion detection systems

Hybrid IDS solutions provide a combination of the above types of intrusion detection. Some vendors' offerings cross multiple categories of IDS to cover multiple systems in one interface.

What is an IPS? Four types and how they work

An IPS has the same functionality as IDS systems in terms of detection but also contains response capabilities. An IPS solution has more agency and takes action when a potential attack, malicious behavior, or an unauthorized user is detected.

The specific functions of an IPS depend on the type of solution, but in general, having an IPS in place is helpful to automate actions and contain threats without the need for an administrator.

1. Network-based intrusion prevention system (NIPS)

A NIPS monitors and protects an entire network from anomalous or suspicious behavior. This is a broad-based system that can be integrated with additional monitoring tools to help provide a comprehensive view of an organization’s network.

2. Wireless intrusion prevention system (WIPS)

WIPS are also quite common, often monitoring any wireless networks owned by an organization. This type is similar to a NIPS but is localized to wireless networks for a more targeted detection and response.

3. Host-based intrusion prevention system (HIPS)

HIPS are often deployed on key devices or hosts that an organization needs to secure. The system will then monitor all traffic flowing through and from the host to detect malicious behavior. 

4. Network behavioral analysis (NBA)

As opposed to NIPS, an NBA solution will look for anomalous behavior within patterns of a network itself, making it key for detecting incidents such as DDoS attacks, behaviors against the policy, and other types of malware.

IDS vs. IPS: Similarities and differences

An IDS and an IPS are quite similar, particularly because of their similar detection process. However, their differences will dictate whether an organization opts for one over the other.

IDS and IPS similarities

Across the two solutions, you can expect a similar level of:

• Monitoring: Both systems monitor networks, traffic, and activity across devices and servers, varying only in how targeted or broad their capabilities are.

• Alerting: Upon discovering a potential threat, only an IPS will take the next required step but both solutions first alert you to the discovery and associated action.

• Learning: Depending on the detection system used by either an IPS or IDS system, both will likely learn to spot suspicious behaviors and minimize false positives.

• Logging: Both systems will keep an account of what’s monitored and what action has been taken, so you can review performance accordingly.

IDS and IPS differences

Depending on how resourced your security team is, the differences between the systems can be very important:

• Response: This is the most important difference between the two systems. An IDS will stop at the detection phase, leaving you and your department free to decide what action to take. An IPS, depending on the settings and policy, will take action to try and contain the threat or prevent unauthorized users from embedding themselves further into your network.

• Protection: Because of the differences listed above, an IPS does offer more protection because it acts automatically, leaving little time for an attacker to continue compromising an organization.

• Impact: As a side effect of that automation, false positives may negatively impact your organization. An IPS may shut down your network or stop traffic to and from a certain device in the name of precaution and security — even if the threat didn’t require such drastic action (or the alert was a false positive).

Why both IDS and IPS solutions are critical for cybersecurity

Organizations shouldn’t necessarily consider choosing one solution over another; both are extremely helpful and many vendors offer an intrusion detection and prevention system, or IDPS, as a solution that provides the benefits of both systems.

Detection and response capabilities have proven to be crucial for organizations to not only know when an attack has reached their perimeter but also to act accordingly. By employing effective detection and response solutions, companies are catching bad actors and reducing dwell time, minimizing the impact these actors can have.

Security leaders should have an understanding of their organization’s needs as well as a list of what data requires monitoring before choosing the right IDS and/or IPS solution. They should also take stock of their own security department to determine whether they want an automated solution, they have an agency to react accordingly, or they’d prefer to have a hybrid approach.

We recommend leveraging both systems or a combination IDPS for effective protection. As organizations grow and scale, additional IDS/IPS solutions may be brought on to account for additional servers, networks, or devices.

For a deeper look at network security and how you can enhance it, Varonis Edge has solutions to explore.

Les Cottrell, SLAC. Last Update: 10/13/2022.
ESnet | PingER Internet monitoring | Tutorial
This is a list of over 700 tools used for Network (both LAN and WAN, public domain and commercial) Monitoring and where to find out more about them. The audience is mainly network administrators. Beginners will probably start at the Page Contents to focus in on what interests them. You are welcome to provide links to this web page. For a list of sites linking to this web page, do a Google search with the search term 'link: nmtf-tools.html'. Please do not make a copy of this web page and place it at your web site since it will quickly be out of date. See below in red if you wish to suggest additions or changes.

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.

We welcome corrections such as identifying broken links (especially if you can provide an alternate/update), since over the years companies are absorbed by others, disappear, split up, change their web site etc. To find broken links, we use CheckLink suggested by Brad Canham, and even better the Chrome browser extension for checking links, suggested by Brian Albert Jensen. Others we have found useful include Link Quality at a Glance suggested by William Chapman. Another possibility is Xenu's Link Sleuth also suggested by William Chapman.

Some links such as BasicState and Lemon give a 404 error code or a 405 code but appear to be accessible and so currently are left in. Others such as NetLogger sometimes timeout, but usually work. See the Footnotes for some alerts (identified by superscripts).

Suggesting Additions/Corrections etc. This is a volunteer, unfunded effort. This helps assure its independence. Increasingly new additions are from reader suggestions/recommendations. If you have a suggestion for adding something: please send an email to Cottrell at slac.stanford.edu making sure that you indicate where the tool fits in the hierarchy, provide a URL to get more information on the tool, and provide a short one sentence description of the tool's purpose with no marketing hyperbole. Also if you notice out of date or incorrect links (e.g. links that go to sites that are not relevant to the link) please report. Thanks.

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

• 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.
  • Allegro Network Multimeters are (portable) appliances specifically designed for network traffic analysis and monitoring of statistics and packets for Layers 2-7 in real-time, both from current network traffic and from the past from recorded trace files. It can be used for both flow and VOIP monitoring for example.
  • All-in-one Netflow Analyzer PRTG monitors your bandwidth and traffic, supports all different NetFlow versions, monitors all important flow protocols.
  • Anritsu provide the MD1230 portable network and IP network performance monitor.
  • Anue Systems acquired by Ixia 2012, makes a Net Tool Optimizer that is used to connect multiple monitoring tools to a network link, or one tool to multiple links. This is a hardware device. It is similar to Gigamon.
  • APCON, manufactures a physical layer matrix switch to remotely move and share network monitoring tools using a software interface or scripting.
  • AthTek NetWalk Enterprise Edition is a comprehensive network monitoring tool which is expert in packet sniffing and analyzing.
  • Capsa performs real-time packet capturing, 24/7 network monitoring, protocol analysis, in-depth packet decoding, and automatic expert diagnosis.
  • 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.
  • Cubro provide a network processor based packet handling engine (packetmaster) and software to sniff and analyze packets on multiple links and can eliminate duplicates appearing on multiple links.
  • 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.
  • EffeDetect an HTTP packet sniffer, protocol analyzer and file reassembly software based on windows platform. Unlike most other sniffers, it is dedicated to capture IP packets containing HTTP protocol, rebuild the HTTP sessions, and reassemble files sent through HTTP protocol. Its smart real-time analyzer enables on-the-fly content viewing while capture, analyze, parse and decode HTTP protocol.
  • EtherDetect provides a connection-oriented view for analyzing packets.
  • ExtraHop analyzes all L2-L7 communications in real-time across all application tiers transforming unstructured packet data into structured wire data. It does this by first reassembling every packet from every transaction back into its original stream and does this on both directions of the transaction flow - tying both sides of the conversation together in order to gain insights into what's happening in the network. Protocol decoders are then run against the reassembled transactions (comes with 45 built-in decoders and more can be rapidly created from rules you set in the device).
  • Garland Technology network TAPs" are hardware devices that feed packets to one or many network tools through breakout, aggregation, or rengeration/SPAN for 10/100/1000M Copper to 1000G fiber optic networks.
  • Gigamon Provide a hardware switch to enable connecting a sniffer to multiple links.
  • IPCopper provide an appliance for monitoring network trafic by sniffing it.
  • Javvin Packet Analyzer software-based network analyzer monitors Ethernet and WLAN traffic in real time, and decode packets and displays in.
  • LANExplorer simple-to-use application that lets you inspect information on computers connected to you via LAN.
  • LANGuardian is a deep packet inspection software for investigating, monitoring, and reporting on network and user activity.
  • LANSurveyor SolarWinds automatically discovers your LAN or WAN and produces comprehensive, easy-to-view network diagrams that integrate OSI Layer 2 and Layer 3 topology data including switch-to-switch, switch-to-node, and switch-to-router port connections.
  • LANWatch 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.
  • NetAlly sets a standard for network analysis and performance testing. It includes tools like LinkRunner®, LinkSprinter®, AirCheck™, and EtherScope nXG.
  • NetScope Graphical network visualisation tool with per-second resolution, real-time and historical data.
  • Noction Flow Analyzer is a network analytics, monitoring, and alerting tool capable of ingesting NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow, NetStream, and BGP data. It helps optimize network performance, control bandwidth utilization, better capacity planning, perform detailed BGP peering analysis, detect potential DDoS attacks, improve overall network security, and minimize network incidents response time.
  • Observer from Network Instruments is a network analyser (Packet sniffer) for 10/100/1000 100/1000 Full Duplex and Multi trunked Ethernet links, wireless a,b an d g, token ring and FDDI.
  • PacketBoy1 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.
  • Sniff'em is a Windows based Packet sniffer, Network analyzer and Network sniffer.
  • Ultra Network Sniffer1 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.
  • VSS Monitoring5 provides a range of distributed traffic capture systems and taps from 10/100 to 10 GigE for complete, selectable and centralized visibility of networks, improving network analyzer reach and efficiency.
• Applications/Services/Systems monitoring (Hosted/managed monitoring services)
  • AccelOps now FortiSIEM integrated monitoring solution, which does security, performance, availability and change monitoring for data centers and cloud services.
  • 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.
  • AlertFox website and web application performance monitoring. Supports transaction monitoring of sites that use complex HTML, AJAX, Flash, Flex, and Silverlight. In-depth root cause analysis for trouble-shooting sporadic issues.
  • AppQos Live! from iTrinergy provides rapid answers in identifying, in real time, the causes of poor application and network performance problems.
  • AppDynamics is an Application Performance Management (APM) solution that monitors, troubleshoots, and diagnoses problems in mission-critical apps.
  • 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.
  • Atatus is a simple, affordable full stack observability platform that provides actionable, real-time insights to diagnose and fix your web and backend apps.
  • Automate* Enables a wide range of automation imperatives encompassing data aggregation, application integration, system/application/network monitoring and problem resolution, disaster recovery, file/data backup etc.
  • BBMonitor Windows bandwidth test software to monitor bandwidth usage and speeds. LAN and Internet bandwidth meter.
  • Catchpoint provides web performance monitoring services relying on synthetic agents on multiple locations around the world and JavaScript based performance monitoring of actual end users.
  • Chariot evaluates the performance of networked applications, performs stress tests of network devices and predicts networked application performance prior to deployment.
  • CleverEye provides an availability monitoring software for servers, network appliances, databases and applications.
  • Congruity Inspector collects and presents network LAN-WAN traffic as hyperlinked relationships. View systems, ports, protocols, applications, and content in a relational context so you can understand how each affects everything else. In 3 clicks, Inspector quickly identifies issues associated with slow network, WAN problems, poor application response, connectivity, access control and security.
  • CueVision Windows based tool to monitor website, servers and network devices.
  • DotCom-Monitor 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.
  • Dynatrace enables you to monitor process-specific network performance metrics like requests and retransmissions to proactively identify connection issues.
  • 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.
  • EventSentry from NETIKUS.NET provides Real-Time Event Log, Log File, Syslog & an SNMP monitoring solution that also monitors system health (disk space, services, performance, NTP, etc.), file checksums, temperature/humidity. Also includes compliance functionality process and network tracking.
  • Exoprise probvides CloudReady, a hybrid cloud-based network and application end-user experience monitoring solution. Analytics include real-time crowd-sourced network performance benchmarks for multi-tenant SaaS platforms like Office 365, GSuite, Skype, VoIP and other web transactions.
  • Hosted/Managed Monitoring Services
    • Alertra Checks (http, https, ping, SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, FTP, TCP) web server from multiple stations around the world.
    • EveryCloud a cloud based free tool that checks an organisation's Email 24/7 and alerts users as soon as there is an issue with the email flow.
    • GMS Live Expert blends traditional IT Help Desk, with remote management software to ensure Reseller Partners, and their end customers have one vendor responsible for services and remote management.
    • LogicMonitor is a SaaS-based automated monitoring tool that monitors networks, servers, virtual environments, applications, and storage from a single pane.
    • monitis provides a "24 x 7" website, applications, systems, network and web traffic monitoring service helping users quickly identify faults and deficiencies to ensure continuous operations of their IT infrastructure and maintain business operations that provide the ultimate web experience. Particularly Monitis provides personalized Ajax dashboard interface, checks server performance and availability, generates uptime reports, tracks visitors, checks CPU, memory and other systems resources, and alerts its users in case abnormalities are detected. External end-user checks are performed from geographically dispersed servers as well from customer locations. Internal checks can be performed inside of network firewalls through smart agents.
    • pingwy Monitoring monitors remotely services like http,https,ftp,dns,telnet,ssh,pop,imap,smtp and alerts you by mail and SMAS when the service goes down by mail. It also allows you to have a precise view of your server's access and load times upon different periods.
    • SiteMonitor2 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.
    • Speed Test is a meter that monitors your internet connection, web site, cpu, memory, Hard Drives, Wifi, LAN, Processes and much more all in real time and will store all data recorded into an log, so it can be easily imported into almost any application. This data can be used to help in resolving problems with your internet connection or computer. Speed Test allows you to view the data in many ways.
    • TelcoAlert4 is a hosted solution that monitors and notifies for testing fax systems and circuits.
    • Uptrends Website Monitoring for your website, server and transactions from a global and end-user perspective.
  • IMMonitor, is network monitoring software that can monitor chat content, email content and web surfing activities in your network.
  • 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
  • IPCheck Server Monitor Network Up-/Downtime Monitoring Monitors critical network resources and detects system failures or performance problems. Freeware available.
  • Labtech Software includes the following features: Remote Monitoring, Software & Hardware Auditing, Remote Control, Software Deployment, Scripting, Automation, Auto-fixing Software Update, Ticketing, and timekeeping.
  • https://www.leapwork.com/">Leapwork monitor system health around the clock to troubleshoot performance issues. Measure load time and latency, pinpoint slowness, and ensure up-time. Get immediate alerts when something fails and set up automated triggers to integrate with bug management systems.
  • N-able OnDemand MonITor Online provides 24�7 proactive network monitoring through status, notification and performance reporting without any network reconfiguration.
  • NetBeez is a distributed network monitoring solution that verifies that the network and the applications are available to users. The system uses dedicated hardware agents that continuously perform end-to-end tests and provide real-time information to the NetBeez dashboard. NetBeez was built to scale, be quick to deploy and easy to use.
  • 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.
  • NetOrbit is LAN and Network monitoring software allows admin to view networked computer screens LIVE and take complete control of a computer and block websites, social media and more.
  • NetVizor provides network monitoring and surveillance software to track workstations and individual users that may use multiple PC's on a network.
  • Obkio is a Distributed End-to-end Network Performance Monitoring SaaS for IT Teams. It monitors Network Performance between offices, datacenters and cloud.
  • 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.
  • PRTG Traffic Grapher Windows software to monitor bandwidth usage and other network parameters via SNMP. Freeware also available.
  • Solarwinds Server & Applications Performance Monitor brings monitoring, alerting, and reporting capabilities to applications and servers. Discover your applications and get the visibility you need into application performance and the underlying operating systems and servers they run on.
  • Server Supervisor monitors the availability and performance of various network resources. The program applies resource-specific approach to handle all cases from regular local workstations to complex web and database servers. It can be used by several people simultaneously. They can use a web interface to configure monitors and receive custom alert notifications depending on their roles. The program comes with built-in statistics analysis tool.
  • ThousandEyes1 monitors network performance from synthetic probes installable on-premises or hosted in POPs around the world. Analytics include visual network topologies, BGP routes, DNS infrastructure, VoIP traffic and web transactions.
  • Vigilix event detection and notification software for applications.
• BGP
• Noction IRP actively probes remote prefixes for metrics such as packet loss, latency, throughput, historical reliability and maximum peer capacity. Based on these actively gathered metrics, the platform computes a performance and/or a cost-based route optimization. The platform then announces the improved route to the network`s edge routers via a typical BGP session.
• DUMeter is a Windows tool to provide a visualization of the data that is flowing through your computer's network connection. It includes includes a reporting facility, a notifications and events system
• DSLReports provide measurement reports (e.g. speed tests, security scans, loss).
• Emulators
  • Anue Network Emulators aquired by Ixia 2012 are used to generate network latency, delay variation (jitter), packet errors, bit errors and other network impairments in order to test application performance over a WAN prior to deployment.
  • LoadView LoadView is a cloud-based, performance testing tool designed to load and stress test websites, web applications, and other public-facing web portals.
  • Netropy The 40G can simulate up to 15 separate links from 100bps to 40Gbps in 1bps increments and emulate latency, packet loss, congestion, and other WAN impairments according to user specification. It can also monitor traffic in real time on all the emulated links. The impairments are configured and applied via browser-based GUI. The engine then forwards packets accordingly between a pair of ethernet ports, allowing for safe and accurate lab testing and validation of applications prior to deployment.
  • PacketStorm IP Network Emulators reproduce the unfavorable conditions of IP Networks and WANs in a controllable and repeatable lab setting.
• 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.
  • FlowMon is a NetFlow monitoring solution (IP flows), providing wire speed processing with no packet loss, for all types of networks from 10Mbps to 10 Gbps.
  • FlowTraq provides visibility into all flow formats and normalizes content regardless of source or sampling. You can then apply arbitrary filters and views to manipulate the data into security intelligence.
  • NetVizura NetFlow Analyzer4 is an application for deep network traffic investigation, analysis and reporting. It is based on NetFlow statistics, exported from your routers and switches to NetFlow server. Highlights: Web based Windows and Linux application,Cisco NetFlow 5 and 9 support (or equivalent: j-Flow, NetStream etc.),Flow statistics based on IP subnets, Hosts, Applications, Protocols, QoS, AS numbers.
  • Netflow from Cisco.
  • Netflow Analyzer is a product specifically meant for Traffic Analysis and Network Forensics, therefore, gives an in-depth visibility into the network traffic, bandwidth utilization, top talkers in the network etc from various flows, such as, NetFlow, sFlow, jFlow, IPFIX, Netstream etc. NetFlow Analyzer also has partnership with Cisco and 3COM.
  • NetFlowAuditor profiles flow data to help organizations quickly identify and alert on network anomalies to help resolve performance problems and manage network security and compliance across business services and applications. Highly fault tolerant, scalable and granular. Learns intensive network profiles with real-time, trending, multiviews, scheduled reporting and alerting. ipv6 compliant. Supports Cisco NetFlow v5/7/9, IPFIX, sFlow, jFlow, NetStream and Flexible NetFlow on Linux and Windows.
  • 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.
  • PRTG Traffic Grapher Windows software to monitor bandwidth usage and other network parameters via SNMP. Supports Netflow. Freeware also available.
  • SevOne Dedicated NetFlow Collector (SevOne DNC) is a dedicated appliance for organizations with heavy NetFlow reporting, analysis and troubleshooting requirements, providing in-depth data about traffic flows in terms of applications, protocols and hosts and their impact on the network.
  • Solarwinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer enables you to quantify exactly how your network is being used, by whom, and for what purpose. Find the bottlenecks, and shut down the bandwidth hogs.
  • SparrowIQ is a real-time network traffic analysis tool for small and medium business. Provides visibility into top talkers and network congestion issues.
  • StealthWatch provides flow-based network performance and security monitoring for enterprise networks.
• 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.
• HipLink1 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.
• IP Address/Asset Management
  • Inventory Genie is a Discovery based Inventory system, that can automatically build an inventory on any subject (specially network & system inventories ) using simple wizards, parsers and multiple protocols (icmp,snmp,sql,http,telnet, ssh,wmi,registry,open ports,...). It can be used to populates CMDBs. It has many pre-made discovery rules. It has the ability to perform remote actions on selected elements based on the information in its DB, thus enables provisioning.
  • ipforensics is a network administration utility that conducts a passive inventory of IPv4 and IPv6 devices on your local network segment by either capturing live packets off the network or reading previously recorded packet capture files. It can be used to perform passive network enumeration and assist in IPv4 to IPv6 migrations by displaying the number of network devices detected that have only IPv4, have only IPv6 or are dual-stacked IPv4 and IPv6.
  • IP - MAC Scanner enables administrators to fast scan all the connected devices and shows the IP/MAC addresses. It can also backup the scanning results to database for future management.
  • netTerrain DCIM data center infrastructure management, automated network documentation.
  • PC Inventory Advisor automatically queries all computers on your network and reports back with details about OS and hotfixes, installed software and hardware, network alerts and visual comparison of configurations.
  • Raritan dcTrack DCIM Operations software is a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution that tracks the assets in a data center and their connectivity to the power chain and network/cable plant providing real-time tabular and visio like visualization of power, rack space, and network port capacity.
  • Remote Asset Tracker is a network inventory and PC auditing software designed specifically for medium and large companies.
  • Statlook Hardware Inventory and Management, Software Asset Management (SAM), User Activity Monitoring, Remote Desktop and IT Helpdesk.
  • Total Network Inventory is a PC audit and Network inventory software for office and large scale enterprise networks. Total Network Inventory interrogates all computers and notebooks on a network and reports back with complete information about OS, service packs, hotfixes, hardware, software, running processes, etc. on remote machines. This information is added to the centralized database and network administrators are able to generate reports about each or all PCs (notebooks) on a network. The program is agent-free and requires no software installed on remote machines (laptops).
  • Trogon MAC Scanner Utility to scan and list IP and MAC addresses, workgroup, username, manufacturer of network adapter of all devices on LAN.
  • XIA Configuration A network documentation tool that inventories and audits the configuration of your server infrastructure and tracks changes to your IT environment including Windows, Linux, VMWare, Citrix and more.
• IT Search/Log Analysis
  • Logentries is a log management and real-time analytics service built for the cloud, connecting to virtually any device or platform to make business insights from machine-generated log data easily accessible.
  • Logit.io is a cloud-native log management platform built on hosted Elasticsearch, Kibana & Logstash.
  • Splunk allows you to search and navigate IT data from applications, servers and network devices in real-time. It includes logs, configurations, messages, traps and alerts, scripts, code, and metrics
• Keynote Systems is a supplier of software and services for measuring and managing the responsiveness of web-based applications.
• NATManager.
• Network Security Monitoring Tools
  • Fail2ban is an intrusion prevention software framework that protects computer servers from brute-force attacks.
  • GFI LANguard network vulnerability scanning, patch management and auditing solution.
  • Glasswire is a visual network security monitor with suspicious activity alerts, a firewall management tool, and the ability to monitor local or remote computers.
  • IP Geolocation API with Threat Intelligence provides the Geolocation, Organisation, Currency, Timezone, Calling Code, Flag, Proxy, Carrier Detection, Tor and Threat intelligence data from any IPv4 or IPv6 address.
  • Lan-Secure Security Center: Network security monitoring software that provides real-time intrusion detection and prevention by enforcing network policy organization rules and online network users activity management.
  • Network Enforcer Network security software that monitors user behaviors using security filters.
  • Network Mon ACL Analyzer A Macintosh tool for finding errors, matches, and duplicates in Cisco IOS, NX-OS, and ASA access-lists.
  • Network Security Software this is a list of network security software 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).
  • Sentinel IPS is a device that blocks malware and other threats from getting through by making your network invisible to malicious users.
  • Shodan monitors network security: can discover which of your devices are connected to the Internet, where they are located and who is using them and for what.
  • System Shepherd delivers end-to-end application visibility (from end-user experience to network to application internals). It is provided as a software service that can optionally be coupled with managed services. The level of optional management is flexible. It can range from Managed Alerting to multi-dimensional SLA-based application management.
  • Techout helps companies measure and optimize the speed and availability of critical online applications, from establishing performance objectives to maintaining peak performance, Techout helps companies measure and optimize the speed and availability of critical online applications.
  • Trisul Network Analytics listens to network packets and creates traffic metrics, monitors flows, extracts metadata and indexes packets for real time analytics and incident response.
  • WFilter is an Internet filtering software that can help organizations to monitor and manage all Internet behaviors on their networks. You only need to install WFilter in one computer to monitor your whole network.
  • 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.
• NetOps provides a set of tools for monitoring, logging and reporting network status, focussing on preventive maintenance.
• 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.
• PingGraph is a multi-threaded graphical TCP/IP network monitoring and diagnostic tool for Windows 95 and NT.
• SAA Service Assurance Agent built into Cisco IOS allows measuring response time, net resources, availability, jitter, connect time, packet loss and application performance.
• SNMP Tools:
  • LoriotPro a generic SNMP manager
  • MIMIC SNMP Simulator creates large-scale network labs for development, testing, marketing, training of SNMP-based network management applications.
  • NetVoyant Provides SNMP-based performance metrics for managing network infrastructure, devices, and services
  • OidView is a modular network management analysis tool that uses the SNMP protocol to talk to various agents and devices on a computer network, offering a variety of plug-in modules like a MIB Browser, MIB Manager, Trap Manager, PDU Capture, etc.
  • 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.
  • Raritan PowerIQ DCIM Monitoring software is a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution that enables data center and facility managers to closely monitor the data center environment and power infrastructure, providing alerts, reports, trend charting, and dashboards.
  • 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.
  • Unbrowse SNMP. A visual SNMP MIB browser, compiler, walker.
• TelAlert from CalAmp a package for enunciating alerts and managing via pagers, email, pop up windows etc.
• Topology/Mapping/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.
  • Graphical Network monitor Windows application to show all of your network connections plotted on a map in real-time.
  • 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.
  • SMARTHawk4 from Solana Networks is an IP network monitoring and diagnostics tool focused on topology, routing and qos
  • VisualRoute a GUI based traceroute for Windows.
• VisualPulse from DataMetrics provide realtime and historical reports on RTT & loss.
• VoIP (Voice over IP)
  • AppNeta Uses standard protocols (ICMP and/or UDP) to transmit small packet configurations across the actual path the application takes. These packets vary in size, pattern, and spacing to fully characterize the network path. Detects signatures used to identify the likely cause of the problem, including MTU mismatch, QoS mismatch, duplex mismatch, media errors, path congestion, excessive packet reordering, etc.
  • Best VoIP providers is a directory of all business VoIP providers with reviews from real users.
  • IR Collaborate (used to be Prognosis) provides systems management software for performance monitoring of IP telephony, VOIP, availability, network management, Windows, UNIX and Linux.
  • Monitor your VoIP and RTC traffic Real time, SIP3 is an end-to-end solution for real-time monitor, analysis and troubleshooting of network performance in large volumes of traffic.
  • Nectar Services Converged Management Platform (CMP) provides comprehensive VoIP monitoring and management solutions including QoS Voice Quality Management, tailored for Avaya and Cisco Unified Communications and Contact Centers.
  • netrounds is a cloud-based solution using distributed active measurement probes which are easily downloaded and deployed on PC hardware. It supports concurrent monitoring of SIP signalling perfomance and ongoing call quality, as well as live IPTV MPEG monitoring in combination of flexible TCP/UDP traffic generation up to 10 Gbit/s.
  • Nextiva Analytics is a reporting and analysis tool that allows you to access and manipulate your call data visually through customizable reports, wallboards, dashboards, and company-wide gamification.
  • Orion VOIP Monitor proactively analyze VoIP quality across WAN links, as well as monitor the underlying systems and protocols that the VoIP environment relies upon.
  • Tekno Telecom non-intrusively monitors converged wireline, wireless and next-generation networks (including SS7, SIP, Sigtran, IMS, and LTE) deriving business intelligence and generating network call/session detail records for Troubleshooting, Call Trace, Protocol Analysis, Quality of Service, Inter-Carrier Billing, Fraud Prevention, Revenue Assurance, Roamer Analysis, Surveillance, Billing Verification, and Alarming.
  • 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.
  • VOIP Software VOIP systems reviews and ratings.
• Video over IP

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.
  • 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.
  • OpenSMART (Open Source|System Monitoring and Reporting Tool) is a tool to monitor applications with an agent per host. These agents report all there results to a central monitoring console for displaying and alerting. OpenSMART agents can fix some errors (like not running processes) on their own and OpenSMART knows about conditional monitoring (e.g. in a cluster: An application will be monitored only, when the file system is available on this cluster node, too).
  • SpiceWorks is a browser-based desktop that lets you: inventory hardware, software and patches on your network; monitor your network for new software, low disk space, offline servers and rogue users; report on the information you need to manage your network.
  • 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.
  • XYMON (used to be HobbitMon) monitors hosts, network services, and anything else you configure it to do via extensions. Hobbit will periodically generate requests to network services - http, ftp, smtp and so on - and record if the service is responding as expected. Through the use of agents installed on the servers, you can also monitor local disk utilisation, logfiles and processes.
• 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).
• BGP
  • Argus monitors the Internet and discovers anomaly BGP updates caused by prefix hacking and adversaries via the web site.
  • BGPlay a web based service, freely available to the community since 2004, which allows graphical inspection of interdomain routing evolution using public BGP data collected by www.routeviews.org and by www.ris.ripe.net.
  • BGPmon can monitor your prefixes and alert you in case of a 'interesting' path change. Recently this has received quite some attention. Specifically after the Youtube hijack and the demo given at defcon.
• Dig
• Emulation
  • Dummmynet A Linux and Windows system for emulating the effects of bandwidth limitations, propagation delays, bounded-size queues, and packet losses.
  • WANem is a Wide Area Network Emulator, meant to provide a real experience of a Wide Area Network/Internet, during application development / testing over a LAN environment.
• 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
  • ZMap open source - Network Discovery. ZMap is a fast single packet network scanner designed for Internet-wide network surveys. On a computer with a gigabit connection, ZMap can scan the entire public IPv4 address space in under 45 minutes. With a 10gigE connection and PF_RING, ZMap can scan the IPv4 address space in 5 minutes.
• Flow Monitoring
  • 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.
  • ASDIC is a system for advanced firewall log and traffic analysis in large TCP/IP networks.
  • Cflowd is an experimental tool to collect data from Cisco's netflow export feature.
  • Host sFlow An sFlow agent for servers and hypervisors exporting standard cpu, memory, disk, VM, container and network metrics with very low overhead.
  • Nett::Flow is a Perl CPAN module to decode and encode NetFlow/IPFIX datagrams.
  • Netflow Monitor is tool with a nice web interface for processing and evaluating NetFlow Exports from CISCO routers.
  • NFDUMP tools collect and process netflow data on the command line. They are part of the NfSen project. The goal of the design is to able to analyze netflow data from the past as well as to track interesting traffic patterns continuously. The amount of time back in the past is limited only by the disk space available for all the netflow data. The tools are optimized for speed for efficient filtering. The filter rules look familiar to the syntax of tcpdump (pcap like).
  • NfSen A graphical web based front end for the nfdump netflow tools that allows you to: dDisplay your netflow data: Flows, Packets and Bytes using RRD (Round Robin Database); navigate through the netflow data; process the netflow data within the specified time span; create history as well as continuous profiles; set alerts, based on various conditions; write your own plugins to process netflow data on a regular interval.
  • sFlow-RT A programmable engine for real-time flow-analytics with sub-second reaction time, optimized for closed-loop-control using BGP, OpenFlow and more. Free for non-production use.
• FTP is the standard File Transfer Protocol. See also Commercial FTP tools.
  • bbcp a secure peer to peer file copy program supporting large windows and multiple streams. See also the presentation.
  • BitTorrent an aggressive peer-to-peer file transfer protocol/implementation.
  • 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.
  • 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.
• Host based network monitoring tools
  • Collectl is a lightweight tool that can monitor network and other traffic and provide a consistent, integrated view of what the system is doing. It can run as a daemon, maintaining a set of rolling logs and optionally can write them in a format plottable by gnuplot or loadable into Excel.
  • Etherape is a graphical network monitor for Unix modeled after etherman. Featuring link layer, ip and TCP modes, it displays network activity graphically. Hosts and links change in size with traffic. Color coded protocols display.
  • Ethergrouik is a free opensource easy-to-use software that enables you to monitor your network activity (like Etherape) for Windows. /
  • Ntop is a Unix tool that shows the network usage, similar to the popular top Unix command.
  • PacketTrap is a free network monitoring tool suite including; TFTP, ping scan, traceroute, and port scan.
  • Pktstat a real-time list of active connections seen on a network interface, and how much bandwidth is being used by what. Partially decodes HTTP and FTP protocols to show what filename is being transferred. X11 application names are also shown. Entries hang around on the screen for a few seconds so you can see what just happened. Also accepts filter expressions � la tcpdump.
• IP Address Management (IPAM)
  • NetDB is a Network Tracking Database providing a highly scalable program using SSH/telnet that keeps track of all ARP and mac-address tables across your routers and switches, with many features to ease network management. You can map devices to your switch ports, locate all ports configured for a VLAN and track all of this information over time.
  • Netmagis is an open-source application which allows a network administrator to manage IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (support for multi-view BIND and ISC-DHCP), delegate DNS management to other people, manage a large number of networks, users, domains, DHCP profiles, etc, generate automatically generated network maps and traffic graphs, and let users assign VLAN to equipment interfaces via a simple Web interface.
• Lachesis a tool from Intel to monitor and report on response time and packet loss to "landmark" Internet sites.
• Mapping tools
  • Best commercial ip geolocation APIs is an objective and detailed analysis of the most popular third party IP Geolcocation APIs. It requires you to set up an account.
  • 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.
  • Network Weathermap provides useful tools for reporting/visualisation of a network's flows generally.
• 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.
  • Ganglia is a scalable distributed monitoring system for high-performance computing systems such as clusters and Grids.
  • GNetWatch2 is a mature free open source Java application that offers real-time graphical monitoring and analysis of network performance (using traffic generators and SNMP probes). The main advantage of GNetWatch is that it can monitor events (like throughput) that change for instance every second : the user can see a dynamic graphical window.
  • GroundWork Monitor Open Source combines open source projects like Nagios, Nmap, Sendpage, MySQL, etc with custom dashboards in one software package for monitoring a range of platforms - Linux, Unix, Windows - & network devices.
  • Hyperic HQ Open Source systems management software designed to monitor, analyze and control performance and availability of web infrastructure including hosts, virtualized guests, services, applications and networks through an easy to use portal and extensible plugin architecture.
  • 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.
  • NetCrunch is a completely free toolkit for network professionals, featuring Ping, Traceroute, Wake OnLAN, DNS Info, Who Is, Ping Scanner, Service Scanner, Open TCP Port Scanner, SNMP Scanner, DNS Audit and Mac Resolver in one.
  • NetMeter This application allows you to seamlessly monitor your online activity in terms of traffic speed. The main window of the program is minimalistic and contains a graph that shows the on-going traffic in your network. The download speed appears in red, while the upload speed appears in green. You can also view the maximum accepted speed.
  • Network Status Notifier is a tool for monitoring and logging network status (links,routes, addresses, neighbours...) and executing scripts upon state changes.
  • OSSMON2 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.
  • Polymon is a free Windows/SQL based network/system monitoring solution that has flexible alerting capabilities as well as historical analysis of uptime and all counters and monitor statuses for a variety of monitors such as ping, snmp, Windows performance monitors, SQL, etc.
  • 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.
  • skipole-monitor1 allows the user to input host IP addresses, it then pings these hosts every five minutes and displays their status via a built-in web server, on port 8000. It can optionally send email alerts if the hosts change status.
  • Zenos 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.
• mrtg-ping-probe2 is a ping probe for MRTG. It is used to monitor the round trip time and packet loss to networked devices. MRTG uses its output to generate graphs visualizing minimum and maximum round trip times or packet loss.
• NetLogger tools to make it easy to instrument distributed applications and visualize the results.
• Network Security
  • CERT NetSA Security Suite The Network Situational Awareness (NetSA) group at CERT has developed and maintains a suite of open source tools for monitoring large-scale networks using flow data. These tools have grown out of the work of the AirCERT project, the SiLK project and the effort to integrate this work into a unified, standards-compliant flow collection and analysis platform.
• NetSpot is a free app for wireless site surveys, Wi-Fi analysis, and troubleshooting on Mac OS X and Windows..
• netstat a built in Unix and Windows command line utility to display active network connections.
• 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.
• NPAD (Network Path and Application Diagnosis) is designed to diagnose network performance problems in your end-system (the machine your browser is running on) or the network between it and your nearest NPAD server. For each diagnosed problem, the server prescribes corrective actions with instructions suitable for non-experts.
• ns network simulator is a discrete event simulator targeted at networking research.
• 2NOCOL (Network Operation Center On-Line)/SNIPS is a system and network monitoring software that runs on Unix systems and can poll network and system devices. It is capable of monitoring nameservers, web ports, host performance, syslogs, radius servers, BGP peers, etc. New monitors can be added easily (via a C or Perl API).
• nslookup
• OWAMP One Way Active Measurement Program from Internet 2. provides one way delay measurements.
• Packet capture/analysis tools. (see also commercial capture tools) Before using these tools on your site you should check with your network security people.
  • 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.
  • Capsa Free is a portable network analyzer for both LAN and WLAN which performs real-time packet capturing, 24/7 network monitoring, advanced protocol analysis, in-depth packet decoding, and automatic expert diagnosis.
  • Ethereal/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 is a network protocol analyzer for Windows, also know as a packet sniffer. It is based on the Ethereal project, but provides a native Windows GUI. Packetyzer can capture from virtually any network adapter and supports many advanced features.
  • IPAudit captures packets in promiscuous mode and is often used for intrusions detection.
  • Microsoft Network Monitor is a packet analyzer. It enables capturing, viewing, and analyzing network data and deciphering network protocols. It can be used to troubleshoot network problems and applications on the network.
  • NetworkMiner is a passive network sniffer/packet capturing tool for Windows. NetworkMiner can detect OS's, hostnames, open ports, sessions and extract files without putting traffic on the network. NetworkMiner can also parse PCAP files for offline forensic analysis
  • 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.
  • sniffit is a Distribted Sniffer System, which allows users to capture network traffic from an unique machine using a graphical client application. This feature is very useful in switched networks, where traditional sniffers only allow users to sniff their own network traffic.
  • 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. tcpillust takes tcpdump file(s) specified at the command line and draws pictures like figures in the ``TCP/IP Illustrated'' series. You can see sample screen images of tcpillust or screen guide at https://www.jp.nishida.org/tcpillust/index.html.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • Bandwidth Estimation Tools a compendium of tools maintained by Sally Floyd.
  • 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).
  • 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. It is now part on the Network Characterization Service (NCS).
• Ping
  • arping2 is an ARP level ping utility. It's good for finding out if an IP is taken before you have routing to that subnet. It can also ping MAC addresses directly. It is pre-installed on some Linux installations, but requires sudo priviledges.
  • Colasoft Ping Tool supports ping multiple IP addresses simultaneously and lists the comparative responding times in a graphic chart.
  • fping is similar to ping but is optimized to ping a large number of hosts in parallel.
  • 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 (Matt's traceroute) combines the functionality of the 'traceroute' and 'ping' programs in a single network diagnostic tool.
  • pathping is built into Windows 2000, it pings all nodes along a route.
  • 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)
    • hping2 hping is a command-line oriented TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer. The interface is inspired to the ping(8) unix command, but hping isn't only able to send ICMP echo requests. It supports TCP, UDP, ICMP and RAW-IP protocols, has a traceroute mode, the ability to send files between a covered channel, and many other features.
    • Tping also can ping more than one host at a time.
  • hping2 is a network tool able to send custom ICMP/UDP/TCP packets and to display target replies like ping do with ICMP replies. LetMeCheck.it2 provides a web accessible TCP Ping. It is used to test the reachability of a service on a host using TCP/IP and measure the time it takes to connect to the specifed port.
• ixchariot (Qcheck then Ixia, now keysight)4 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.
• RRDtool (Round Robin Database tool) is a system to store and display time-series data.
  • 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.
  • ElvinRRD2 is a tool to provide a mechanism for transporting data across a network and storing it in RRD databases. ElvinRRD is written entirely in Python and works with (and requires) both Elvin and RRDtool. Any Elvin producer (client) can send data for ElvinRRD to store (e.g., EDDIE-Tool); and any RRD-aware software can process the resulting RRD databases (e.g., Cricket, Cacti).
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Torrus2 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:
• SolarWinds Free Tools provides many free tools for everydays tasks performed by network professionals. Includes uploading/downloading executabe images to network devices, IP address tracking, syslog server, monitoring of some applications, netflow etc.
• 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
• TCPTune a TCP stack tuner for Windows
• telnet
• Thruput tools (also see the FTP tools):
  • BWCTL is a command line client application and a scheduling and policy daemon that wraps the throughput testing tools Iperf, Thrulay, and Nuttcp. These tests can measure maximum TCP bandwidth, with various tuning options available, or, by doing a UDP test, the delay, jitter, and datagram loss of a network
  • gen_send/gen_recv* a simple UDP trafic generator.
  • IPerf is a tool for measuring maximum TCP and UDP bandwidth, reminiscent of tools such as ttcp. It was written to overcome the shortcomings of those aging tools and is still supported. There are multiple instatiations:
    • Iperf2 A tool for measuring TCP and UDP network performance from Bob Mcmahon. Documentation includes Iperf 2 vs iperf 3 major differences.
    • Iperf3 Perform active measurements to determine the maximum achievable bandwidth on IP networks. Also provides some of the history behind iperf, iperf2 and iperf3.
    • Jperf is a Java implementation.
  • 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.
  • thrulay2 measures achievable UDP and TCP single stream throughputs (currently only supports Linux) also provides RTT estimates.
  • ttcp
• Traceroute (also see the Traceroute Servers web site)
  • Free Network Traceroute test and commercial traceroute products)
  • traceroute servers.
  • G Suite.tools performs a traceroute to the slected name or address of a host and provides a Google map of the hops.
  • 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.
  • pathping a Windows NT utility to do a traceroute and then measure to each node along the route.
  • Prtraceroute is a version of traceroute 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.
  • Tracerou-nanog has additional features like AS lookup, TOS support, microsecond timestamps, path MTU discovery, parallel probing and others.
  • Traceroute-online performs an advanced online traceroute that maps and enriches output from mtr. Determine transit providers with Geolocation and ASN information.
• 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.

Wireless tools [Contents]

• 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.
• NetSpot is an app for wireless site surveys, Wi-Fi analysis, and troubleshooting on Mac OS X and Windows.
• Network cvards for wireless monitors top selling networking cards and regularly updates them based on sales history. There are different pages per country as well.

Web Tools [Contents]

• Benchmarking
• StressStimulus is a load testing tool used to determine the performance of websites and mobile apps by recording any number of user scenarios in a web browser and replaying them to realistically emulate the application traffic of thousands of users while monitoring key performance indicators and server operation under load.
• WAPT (Web Site APplication Testing) is a web load and stress testing tool that provides a way of testing web sites, web servers, and intranet applications with web interfaces.
• WCAT is a Web Capacity Analysis Tool freely available from Microsoft.
• WebStone from MindCraft measures raw throughput of a standard HTTP workload.
• 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.
• Website Monitoring, Also see Best website monitoring tools, The Best Website Monitoring Services and How to monitor your website's uptime for lists of best website monitoring services that keep a watchful eye on both a domain's homepage and all of its other directories and subpages.
  • Apica does Load and Performance testing as well as Website Monitoring.
  • BasicState1 is a free hosted service for monitoring the status of http servers. Subscribers can also add popular ecommerce partner sites to their alert specifications.
  • DownorNot shows actual and past information about the uptime of (mainly) popular websites
  • Katalon free software to help you to test and monitor the Web, Mobile apps, & APIs.
  • Malware and Phishing Check Use this tool to check your site against the Google Safe Browsing list.
  • Panopta is a server monitoring service and outage management system for online businesses and service providers, providing the ability to detect outages immediately, then notify the right people about the outage, and finally, give a team the right tools to resolve the outage quickly.
  • Pingdom lets you monitor the uptime and response time of your web site or servers from several locations around the world. See your historical performance and make sure that you have a acceptable availability so you are not loosing customers and visitors. You can also receive SMS and email notifications if any downtime occurs so you can fix any errors the minute they happen.
  • pingometer monitors the uptime, downtime, and performance of services and websites. It alerts you if something happens -- 24/7/365 -- via email, text message, phone call, Twitter DM, or webhook. You can monitor any HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, TCP, or UDP service and test web transactions (step-by-step activities) on a site.
  • RandomBytes is a free URL Checker tool - to verify if your websites are down and determine if their content has changed.
  • Testomato checks your website and alerts you if anything breaks.
  • SITEImpulse Website Monitoring providing 1 minute availability monitoring. It has 3 monitoring stations on different continents. Email, SMS and RSS alerts.
  • SiteLock Malware Scanner service monitors your website and scans for potential threats like spam and various types of malware.
  • SSL check your web site This free tool will crawl an HTTPS-website (entire website, recursively, following internal links) and search for non-secure images, scripts and css-files that will trigger a warning message in browsers. The number of pages crawled is limited to 400 per website. The results are cached for 10 minutes.
  • StatusCake provides Uptime Monitoring, Domain Monitoring, SSL Monitoring for websites.
  • SuperMonitoring Monitoring website uptime and basic functions (content, file integrity, forms). Instant email and mobile text (SMS) alerts.
  • TurboMonitor* is a tool capable of checking your webpage every second without affecting performance, and can monitor the following: HTTP, IMAP, PING, POP3, SMTP, WEB URL. Alerts are sent immediately in the event of failure, and include the reason for failure.
  • WebPerform provides website performance monitoring and testing services from network locations in major cities across the globe. Drill-down object, host, and component level detail on test runs, reporting, and alerting help companies identify and resolve availability issues and performance problems.
  • WebSitePulse is a Web based monitoring services which monitors networks, web servers, websites, web applications and alerts you when a problem is detected.
  • WebSite up or down2 checker is an easy tool for webmasters to check if a website is currently offline.
  • WebWalk is a proven dynamic feature that uses synthetic transactions to measure application performance from the end-user perspective.
  • WHSR Host Uptime Monitor Monitor up to 10 sites per account for free, site check every 5 minutes.
• Webalizer is a fast, free web server log file analysis program. It produces highly detailed, easily configurable usage reports in HTML format, for viewing with a standard web browser.

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

Further Information [Contents]

• Anti Virus
  • Best Antivirus Software compares antiviruses over five rounds: features, pricing, user-friendliness, protection and support.
  • Safety Detective a global security community and experts sharing their honest feedback on all the antivirus apps and software that exist today.
• Computing Vendors Online.
• Free PC Audit interrogate a PC to find its configuration. It does not require installation and can be used as a portable application.
• Gartner
• Gigamon 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.
• GroundWork open platform for network, application, and cloud monitoring, for heterogeneous operating systems .
• Network Management Tutorial
• Privacy
  • 55 Ways to Save Money on Internet Safety: The DEFINITIVE Guide guide to tools for Internet safety.
  • Cyberopz is a creative IT solution that utilizes security engineers and CISOs to meet cybersecurity compliance requirements and improve companies' cybersecurity programs.
  • Cybersecurity Industry Resources for students and professionsals.
  • CYPHERIX a free Cryptainer LE Encryption Software to Encrypt Any Data on Any Windows PC.
  • Encryption Guide tool for those who are seeking information about "Encryption". In this guide you can get information about Public Key, Private key, 3DES, AES, RSA and all of other metrics which related to Encryption.
  • Guide to Protect Your Children on Their Smartphone provides ways which you can use to protect your children on their smartphone and keep them safe.
  • How much privacy do you have online The resource shares definitions on what classifies as privacy and personal information, ways to take charge of personal privacy online, and information on digital privacy regulations for the future.
  • How Parents and Educators Can Protect Children's Online Privacy
  • Magento Payments Security a guide on how to protect your Magento Store from payment data leaks. It also describes the dangers of online transactions inside Magento.
  • Malware Analysis: Tools of the Trade
  • Online Privacy Guide features an extensive range of guides, interviews and research articles.
  • OpenSSL is a robust, commercial-grade, and full-featured toolkit for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols.
  • Parents Guide to Teaching your Teen Online Safety a practical guide for parents which explains the various types of threats that teens could be exposed to online. It shares useful summaries of popular internet apps. It offers other online safety topics and suggests other links to additional internet safety resources for parents from well-respected sources.
  • PrivacyEnd is a source of Information Security, Hacking News, Cyber Security, and Network Security with in-depth technical coverage of issues and events in the digital era to create awareness.
  • Privacy Guide.
  • Security and phone risks and staying safe this guide outlines the risks you face and how to keep you and your phone safe and secure.
  • Touchstone Security works with you to create a flexible, streamlined cybersecurity program that integrates directly with your business and provides concrete, measurable security.
  • Usable Privacy and Security or how to secure your digital life, from a master's course at UC Berkeley. This course dives into how individuals can protect their lives by securing photos, videos, and financial documents, both on the computer and in the cloud. This article also provides recommendations for tools and additional resources to increase digital security..
• Several discusses Hosting, Antivirus, VPNs, and website builders.
• TextFixer free tools to generate random words, remove line breaks, convert a word doc, convert text to basic HTML, generate HTML and fix word capitalization.
• Home and Small Business networks
  • Networks Hardware your modem and router center. The website is a resource on networking equipment, troubleshooting guides, router login, and info on Internet providers in the United States. We buy and test every router and modem we recommend.
  • RoutersNetwork provides various networking related topics such as networking, How to troubleshooting Guide, Routers login and more. It is aimed at small business and home networks.
• Tools: lists for network monitoring
  • 26 Best Network Monitoring Tools and Software* a review of the best free and paid network monitoring tools.
  • Best Cisco Network Monitoring Tools reveals a list of the top five Cisco monitoring tools. For each one, there is a brief review of the product and its best features.
  • Best Network Monitoring Software is a directory of business network monitoring tools with reviews from users.
  • Best Site Performance & Monitoring Tools a collection of some of the best site performance and monitoring tools that you can start using right away to optimize performance and monitor your site.
  • Best Website Monitoring Services, provides a review of monitoring services to keep your site up 24/7.
  • 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.
  • Internet Tools
  is a compact, comprehensive, carefully organized set of links to essential Internet sites about Internet-based tools for information, interaction, and communication.
  • Network Diagram and Mapping Topology, Best Network Diagram Mapping and Topology Software.
  • NetAdminTools is a repository of Tools and Software for Network Monitoring, Management and Administration for Network Engineers, Administrators and Tech Support specialists.
  • Network Performance Measurement Tools: An Internet2 Cookbook
  • LoveMyTool gives customer testimonials and expert reviews of their favoriate "out-of-band" network security and performance monitoring tools.
  • Siftery A list of the top network monitoring tools used by verified employees at large companies
  • Terena Guide to network resource Tools a guide to network tools and innovation for users of all levels of expertise.
  • Top 10 Intrusion Detection Tools is a review of the top 10 intrusion detection tools.
  • Top 15 Network Monitoring Tools Reviewed starts by discussing the need for network monitoring tools and the different types of tools that are available. Then looks at how bandwidth utilization monitors, network analysis systems and packet sniffers work and how they can be used. Finally reveals our top 5 tools in each of the three categories. Some are free and/or open-source tools, others are commercial packages.
  • Top 7 Intrusion Prevention Systems is a review of the top 7 intrusion prevention tools.
• 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.
• Tutorial on Internet Monitoring & PingER.
• VPN
  • Best VPNs explains what a VPN does, how safe it is, whether free or paid is better, and provides its top choices. Also see their home page at https://vpnvanguard.com/.
  • Best VPNs provides a handy guide, letting you know how to use one to your advantage. `
  • Best VPNs for Canada Detailed VPN Reviews & VPN Guides for the Beginners.
  • Best VPNs in Canada Reviews of which are best for Canada
  • Best VPN Reviews Reviews and Articles.
  • Best VPN Services Apps editorial reviews and ratings.
  • Best VPN Services for Wordpress users goes through the process of buying a VPN and what to look for in a VPN service provider.
  • Best VPN Solutions is a list of free VPN solutions, ordered by number of verified user reviews.
  • Free VPNs reviews and guides for beginners who are new to internet privacy.
  • Guide to Access VPN in China how to bypass the Great Wall of China.
  • Most Secure VPN provides comprehensive online privacy guides and user's feedback based VPN reviews.
  • ReviewsDIR is a tech review website which brings industry experienced reviewers to review and recommend tech products, specifically VPN services and keep tabs on the latest online privacy/security trends and data retention laws all over the world.
  • Tips for China the Best and Fastest VPNs to use in China. Up to date information on VPN performance in China.
  • Top VPN Service2 tests and provides up-to-date useful guides. There are current reviews, tutorials, news, costs etc. including suitability for use in a country, and compatibility with a device to catch a show.
  • VpnAlert is a review website full of analyses and tests of miscellaneous virtual private network service providers that help users to make more informed decisions.
  • VPN.com - Compare VPN Providers discover pricing, features, picture of apps, devices supported and more for over 900 different VPN providers.
  • VPN Beginners Guide what you need to know before getting a VPN.
  • VPNCodes - Decoding Trusted Best VPN Services With 28 Checkpoints Decoding VPN services with 28 tests and rank them accordingly.
  • VPN Comparisons provides the key differences between two or more VPN providers at a glance, use this VPN comparison tool and find the most reliable one for internet activities. Also see the information on avoiding VPN throttling.
  • VPN Insights aims to provide you privacy awareness and free tools to detect your online privacy status.
  • VPN Pioneer find the VPN provider for your needs.
  • VPN Software GoodFirms research team has evaluated and created a list of the best VPN software based on multiple factors such as price, features, ease of use, security level, etc. `
  • VPN tools explained What is a VPN protocol? The most popular VPN protocols explained.
• Web Hosting
  • Aussie Hosting 10 things you should look for when choosing a web hosting company.
  • Beginner-oriented Guide from 256 Kilobytes is a beginner-oriented guide for users looking to make their first website, which covers setting up domain registration, web hosting, content management systems, and the other steps to launch a site.
  • Best Cloud Hosting review of cloud hosting providers with pros and cons.
  • Best Domain Hosting Canada provides a detailed list of the top 10 places to host a domain for Canadians.
  • Best VPS Hosting provides an analysis of pros and cons of VPS hosting companies on the market, with response time and uptime information.
  • Best VPS Hosting Providers is a review of Virtual Private Server hosting of web sites.
  • Best Web and Cloud Hosting Services highlights the best services, looks at industry trends and answers common web hosting questions.
  • Best Web Hosting Canada provides reviews and technical comparisons of the top 15 web hosting sites for Canadians.
  • Best Web Hosting in India a one-stop source where you can compare different Indian web hosting companies and pick the best. Along with web hosting reviews and comparisons, HostingClues also offers the latest web hosting coupons.
  • Best Web Hosting Services a review of the top-5 companies for helping you choose the best web hosting provider.
  • Best WordPress hosting, How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting.
  • Cloud Hosting discusses the pros and cons of cloud hosting, sometimes refered to as VPS ( Virtual Private Server) and make some recommendations.
  • Cloudwards has reviews of cloud storage, web hosting, data recovery and VPN services.
  • Enterprise WordPress Hosting from Presslabs is a secure made-to-measure hosting infrastructure meant for the most complex website setups.
  • Hosting Data UK helps you choose the most suitable web hosting for your website if you're based in the United Kingdom.
  • How to Purchase a Domain Name and Hosting Purchasing domain name and hosting is an essential step when creating a new website for your business. A reliable web hosting and a memorable domain name have a significant impact on the success of your website.
  • Ranking Web Hosting ranks Shared Hosting Providers by Uptime, Response Time, Price, etc.
  • Top 10 best "Web hosting" companies in India provides hosting reviews to users without any fee or charges.
  • Top 10 Best Web Hosting Company in India provides help in choosing the right one for business.
  • The 10 Best Web Hosting For Indian Websites, provides a guide to help you to select the best web hosting providers in India with Reliable and affordable hosting prices with the best customer supports.
  • Top hosting providers from HRANK is a free site that reviews existing hosting services and rates their performance on the basis of several factors.
  • UK Web Hosting Review.
  • Web Hosting Deals provides a list of Hosting Deals with Coupon Codes for bloggers, Marketers, Developers, and Small businesses.
  • Web hosting server location provides guidance on web server location to optimnize Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
  • Web Hosting Software Web hosting software, list of best providers.
  • Wordpress hosting experts helps Australian businesses host high-performance WordPress websites on enterprise-grade infrastructure.
• 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.
• The X Consortium's Anonymous FTP Archive.

Footnotes
* Privacy: This link is not private. Attackers might try to steal your information.
1When using the Chrome Browser extension for checking Links Results, this gives an error, e.g. 403, 404, 405, 500, 503 503 503 503 503 but usually works from the browser.
2Deadlistchecker cannot access (often times out) but it works.
3Changed name.
4This is slow to load and so may appear to not exist.
5Is redirected to an alternative site, often because of a takeover.

[ Contents | SLAC | Stanford University ]