Published on 10/27/2007

Everyone needs tools to do their job. My purpose with this article is to give you a good list of valuable applications that every network administrator should have at their disposal. This is the first in a five part series where I will present my list of essential tools for convenient and secure network/system administration.

S.U.I.T.E Toolkit Part I

Over the course of the past few weeks I’ve been compiling a list of various tools for my S.U.I.T.E (Super Ultimate Incedibly Terrific Essentials) Toolkit. Yeah…I know, I’m still working on the name. While compiling the list I realized it might be good fodder for the IT Drive crowd. Over the next few weeks I will bring you small, but valuable portions of this list of what I consider to be essentials tools for the hard working network/system admins out there.

Here we go…

Putty

Putty is a free telnet/ssh/rlogin client

Feature highlights:

Does not require an install

· Lightweight and fast

· Session logging

· Support for SSH1 and SSH2 including public keys both RSA and DSA

· Available for Windows 95 thru Vista

Check out the screenshots.

WinSCP

WinSCP is a free SFTP, FTP and SCP client for Windows

Feature highlights:

· Lightweight

· Drag and drop f ile transfers

· Provides an easy to use graphical ftp interface for transferring files over SFTP, SCP, and FTP

· Support for scripting/automation through scripting/console interface.

· Command-line access

Check out the screenshots.

Filezilla

Filezilla is a free full featured FTP client and server solution

Feature highlights:

· Easy to use

· Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

· Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX and more

· Available in many languages

· Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB

· Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue

· Drag & drop support

· Configurable Speed limits

· Filename filters

· Network configuration wizard

Check out the screenshots.

Nessus

The Nessus vulnerability scanner is the world-leader in active scanners

Feature highlights:

· High speed discovery

· Configuration auditing

· Asset profiling

· Vulnerability analysis

· Ad-hoc scanning

· Multiple subnet scanning

· Free updates to vulnerability knowledge base

· Scanning with credentials

· Many more

Check out a sample report.

Wireshark

Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer, and is the de facto (and often de jure) standard across many industries and educational institutions.

Feature highlights:

· Hundreds of protocols are supported, with more being added all the time

· Live capture and offline analysis

· Standard three-pane packet browser

· Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others

· Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility

· The most powerful display filters in the industry

· Rich VoIP analysis

· Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer® (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments Observer, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others

· Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly

· Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB, Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platfrom)

· Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2

· Coloring rules can be applied to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis

· Output can be exported to XML, PostScript®, CSV, or plain text

Check out the screenshots.

That’s it for this week, make sure you come back next week for the 2nd installment.