Free Network Monitoring Software

From Tony Bradley, CISSP, MCSE2k, MCSA, A+, for About.com
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* free software
* free network monitoring
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Bandwidth Monitor
Daily, weekly, and monthly information logs * Compatible with all versions of windows * Options and graphs for capped users * Multiple users and selectable adapters * Network and dial-up connections * English, Italian, German, and Russian

FREEping - Server Pinging
Do you want to know if all your Windows 2003-XP-2000-NT servers are alive and pinging? Do you want to receive a pop-up message when one of them is not running anymore? FREEping is a free ping software utility which will ping all your IP addresses in free-definable intervals. FREEping automatically pings in the background and shows statistics for each pinged hosts. When a host stops responding, FREEping can send popup messages to a specified destination.

Look@LAN
Auto-Detect of Network Settings * Scanning of one or more Scan-Ranges * Complete Management of Network Profiles * World's Faster Node Discovery Scan * Automatic and Manual Network Configuration * Network Statistics and Graphs * Profile Export (text and HTML) * Advanced Trapping * Network Log * Network Tree View * Proof Single Node Scan * Reporting

Servers Alive
Servers Alive is an end-to-end network monitor program. Among the many checks it can do: it can monitor any Winsock service, ping a host, check if an NT service/process is running, check the available disk space on a server, retrieve a URL, check your database engine, and more.

Sysinternals CPUMon
Use this advanced tool to read the performance counters of Pentium, Pentium Pro and Pentium II processors. Not for the faint of heart, CPUMon is intended for those with a good familiarity of processor architecture. Version 2.0 is integrated with Perfmon.

Sysinternals DebugView
Another first from Sysinternals: This program intercepts calls made to DbgPrint by device drivers and OutputDebugString made by Win32 programs. It allows for viewing and recording of debug session output on your local machine or across the Internet without an active debugger.

Sysinternals DiskMon
This utility captures all hard disk activity or acts like a software disk activity light in your system tray.

Sysinternals FileMon for Linux
This monitoring tool lets you see all file system activity in real-time. Versions exist for all versions of WinNT/2K, Windows 9x/Me, Windows XP 64-bit Edition, and Linux.

Sysinternals FileMon for Windows
This monitoring tool lets you see all file system activity in real-time. It works on all versions of WinNT/2K/XP, Windows 9x/Me, Windows XP 64-bit Edition, and Linux.

Sysinternals Handle
This handy command-line utility will show you what files are open by which processes, and much more.

Sysinternals ListDLLs
List all the DLLs that are currently loaded, including where they are loaded and their version numbers. Version 2.0 prints the full path names of loaded modules.

Sysinternals NTFSInfo Use NTFSInfo to see detailed information about NTFS volumes, including the size and location of the Master File Table (MFT) and MFT-zone, as well as the sizes of the NTFS meta-data files.

Sysinternals PMon This is an NT Gui/device driver program that watches process and thread creation and deletion, as well as context swaps if running on a multiprocessing or checked kernel.

Sysinternals PortMon Monitor serial and parallel port activity with this advanced monitoring tool. It knows about all standard serial and parallel IOCTLs and even shows you a portion of the data being sent and received. Version 3.x has powerful new UI enhancements and advanced filtering capabilities.

Sysinternals Process Explorer Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.

Sysinternals PSTools Suite
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.

Sysinternals RegMon
This monitoring tool lets you see all Registry activity in real-time. It works on all versions of WinNT/2K, Windows 9x/Me and Windows 64-bit.

Sysinternals TCPView
See all open TCP and UDP endpoints. On Windows NT, 2000 and XP TCPView even displays the name of the process that owns each endpoint. Full source to the command-line version of this tool, netstatp, is included.

Sysinternals TDIMon
See TCP and UDP activity in real-time with this advanced network API monitoring tool.

Sysinternals TokenMon
Watch security-related activity, including logon, logoff, privilege usage, and impersonation with this monitoring tool. Full source code included.

Sysinternals WinObj
The ultimate Object Manager namespace viewer is here. Version 2.0 has significant UI enhancements, knows about more object types, and is integrated with NT's native security editors.

Go To: http://netsecurity.about.com/cs/hackertools/a/aafreenetmon.htm