Brief presentation of Sniffnet, an open source application – continuously updated – which allows you to monitor network connections, detect any problems and resolve situations that require immediate attention within the LAN.
If you are involved in network management or information security, you have certainly heard of sniffer: these are software tools that integrate features to monitor and analyze network traffic providing valuable information to troubleshoot, improve performance, and secure your network.
The network snifferOnce activated, they collect the data packets that are exchanged on the local network, both through wired connections (Ethernet) and through WiFi connections. Through this detailed analysis, you can gain vital information about IP addresses, protocols used, and the content of the transmitted data. Gaining this kind of in-depth knowledge about the behavior of devices connected to your local network can reveal potential weaknesses, performance issues, and security threats.
If your network connection is slow, you experience delays or experience packet loss, in-depth traffic analysis helps pinpoint the culprits of these problems such as network congestion, IP address conflicts or misconfigurations.
The network security This is another area where network sniffers are invaluable: Monitoring network traffic can help spot suspicious activity or unauthorized access attempts. Sniffers are useful for detecting suspicious activity, malware, and general patterns of anomalous behavior. This allows you to take early action to protect your network and managed data.
Network sniffing with the Sniffnet open source application
Sniff net is an open source software that can be used without any limitations, in any environment, to monitor network traffic, detect and troubleshoot any problems. One of the main ones advantages is that the application is constantly updated, which is essential for a network sniffer. Available for all operating systems, the download of Sniffnet can be done at no cost through the links published on GitHub.
Depending on the operating system you are working on, Windows, Linux o macOS, you need to pre-install some software components that are essential for Sniffnet to work. In the case of Windows, for example, the libraries must be loaded Npcap; su Linux libpcap; on macOS it is not necessary to “prepare the ground” for the installation of Sniffnet.
Sniffnet, among various skills, allows you to select the network card to check inspecting all traffic passing through it, specify the set of filters to apply on the data packets under observation, view general statistics on Internet traffic and real-time graphs on the volume of traffic generated to and from the local network.
With an application like Sniffnet, you have access to a detailed overview of domain names, the providers and hosts with which data is being exchanged. We can therefore get an idea of the active connections in the local network, geolocate IP, memorize the hosts to monitor and set notifications customized to receive immediate feedback as soon as specific events occur.
Sniffnet is also solid from a security point of view reporting: the application allows you to generate a complete text report with detailed information for each network connection: source and destination IP addresses, source and destination ports, protocols used, volume of data packets and bytes exchanged, initial timestamp and end of each transaction.
The application also integrates support for a number of keyboard shortcuts which help to improve the efficiency of use and the overall user experience: with various key combinations, it is possible to open the complete reports, the settings, cancel all notifications, interrupt the analysis in progress, start the analyze and confirm certain types of operations, move to a specific tab or the next/previous one, quickly inspect connections.
Last but certainly not least, we underline the not negligible fact that Sniffnet is written in Rustalso recently adopted by Microsoft to write and optimize some functions integrated into the Windows 11 kernel.
A network sniffer like Sniffnet is a powerful ally in the network management and in cyber security. Whether you need to troubleshoot networking issues, improve performance, or protect your infrastructure, an application like the one featured in our article gives you instant access to a detailed view of what’s happening on your LAN.
Finally, it is important to note that the use of sniffers must be carried out in compliance with the laws and company security policies, avoiding the violation of privacy or unauthorized access to networks or sensitive data of others.
