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Packet sniffers and what to do with them?

Can anyone tell me what a packet sniffer could do for my network?

I have captured a few minutes of traffic...
I understand the src and dest. IP's aloong with the type of traffic.... but how do I know if I have too much traffic or how do I know if I am having a problem?

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Steve Jennings

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CyberStretch

It would seem like you are searching for the correct tehcnology for a specifc problem.

In another thread, someone made mention of 3Com's Network Supervisor (http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/result.jsp?selected=5&sort=effdt&order=desc&sku=3C15100C). It is freeware and offers the ability to map and display alerts based upon threshholds that you set for any network component. Although this is not a packet sniffer, it does help to monitor network traffic and potential problems; offering ways to notify you if you are off site or away from the monitoring system.

I have tried this on my home network and it basically works pretty good. Some of the SOHO networking equipment I have is improperly detected, but that is to be expected. Also, I had problems getting the Advanced Package and SP1 to install. (Kept telling me I needed to have Network Supervisor installed, which I do on a different partition than the one setup suggested. Therefore, they could have coded the default install directory into the upgrades.)

CleanupPing

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