Testing archives - IT Trenches

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Feb 27 2009   7:41PM GMT

Did you see this? - Internet Measurement Testing tools



Posted by: Troy Tate
network testing, network, testing, toolkit, research, throughput, analysis, Performance, performance monitoring

There will always be some user saying “the internet is slow”. There are many resources out there to test internet connections. The Measurement Lab is one I came across the other day. There are several useful tools under this page. Some of the tools and descriptions are listed below. Maybe one of these will be useful to you or your users some day. Just remember you heard about it on IT-Trenches! Thanks for reading and let’s continue to be good network citizens.

Feb 2 2009   5:15PM GMT

ARP as a network auditing tool



Posted by: Troy Tate
ARP, protocol, testing, tools, toolkit, scanning, education, video, training, protocol analysis, Laura Chappell

ARP - or Address Resolution Protocol is a necessary element for network traffic. Per Wikipedia: “In computer networking, the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is the method for finding a host’s link layer (hardware) address when only its Internet Layer (IP) or some other Network Layer address is known. ARP is defined in RFC 826.[1] It is Internet Standard STD 37.” It is not an IP only protocol.

What this means, is that ARP is not a protocol that is easily blocked or disabled on a network. This is as designed but this also means that attackers can use this protocol for malicious activities. It is important that you understand the ARP protocol and the ways it is used and the dangers associated with it.

Laura Chappell, the BitGirl, has created a new tutorial on using ARP to scan networks which may be firewalled or ICMP pings are blocked. ARP will permit you - and attackers - to find hosts on the network. Take some time and watch this short video and gain some valuable insights into ARP.

Watch Chappell University - Ethical Hacking with NetScanTools Pro - ARP Scanning

Thanks for your time and let’s be good network citizens!


Jan 6 2009   4:45PM GMT

Swiss-army knife for public network testing



Posted by: Troy Tate
toolkit, tools, testing, connectivity testing, website, dns, ping, tracert, icmp, tcp, udp, public network, ssh, SSL, cryptography, crypto, crypto testing, hash, typosquatting

Sometimes it is necessary to test connectivity outside of your private company network. There are several resources I use. I will share a couple of those with you in this posting.

One of my favorite and most frequently used sites is Network-Tools. This website allows you to test Traceroute, PIng, Domain Name Server (DNS) lookup, Whois, and DNS record lookups. This is an excellent resource like DNSTools or DNSStuff.

Another site with useful public internet testing tools is Serversniff.net. You can use this site to perform TCP pings rather than the standard ICMP pings. There is also a step-ping test. This provides the ability to have increasing ping packet sizes to see if there is a bottleneck somewhere before the tested host. There are lots of other tools available on this website. I recommend you check it out and see which offer value to you in your support activities.

Unfortunately, these tools only work from the public internet. You will not be able to test hosts on your private network, but hey, shouldn’t you already have some other testing tools in your toolbag for the private network? I’m sure I will describe more tools as the year moves on.

Thanks for reading & let’s practice safe networking out there! Please feel free to leave comments for other readers so they can adequately support their networks.