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How can I look at all the packets on my unmanaged switch?

I have several wndows computers on an unmanaged switched and I want to run some software on one of those computers that will view all the packets on that switch, not just the ones addressed to the specific monitoring computer.

What's a good free or inexpensive piece of software to look at all switch activity from a single PC?

Thanks.

TAOSA

What you are talking about is a packet sniffer on a switch but several pieces of essential information are lacking.
1) Is this switch set up to bridge packets?
If bridging is turned on then every port sees every packet and can be used to monitor traffic

2) Is there a monitoring port?

gateguard

ASKER

It's a netgear fs605 unmanaged 5-port switch

i can't do anything about the internals of the switch

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TAOSA

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gateguard

ASKER

Thanks, Taosa, very thorough answer.

I own all three computers involved and am just trying to figure out a way to troubleshoot the single weirdest networking problem I have ever seen, so I'm not going to worry about the legal stuff.

But you've pointed me in the right direction with promiscuous mode. I'm going to try that.

Thanks again for that detailed response. I really do appreciate it.

gateguard

ASKER

Great. Thanks.

csalaski

Wireshark is free. http://www.wireshark.org/ It can capture all traffic on the line even if not addressed to that workstation. You can filter the results to see only what you want to look at.