Tools for the Daily Grind
There are many tools that can make the life of a network administrator easier. The following is a list of programs that I use on a daily basis to make management of the network easier. As a bonus, all of these programs are available free of charge.
A few of these tools I use mainly for organization, as I am anal retentive about being organized and making commonly used information easily accessible. You may find some of these tools more or less useful depending on your habits.
KeePass – This a great tool to organize and securely store password information. It has multiple methods of authentication, including password and key based. KeePass allows you to create groups as well as nested groups to easily organize information. The entire database is also searchable to further make accessing information easier. The included password generator can help you come up with passwords other than the usual P@$$word!
Wireshark - Wireshark is a popular traffic capture program. A traffic capture program comes in handy when issues arise and you need to see communication information between hosts. It has helped my countless times when troubleshooting port authentication issues. Wireshark has a plethora of other features that can aide in finding the cause of any issues.
Tftpd32 - You’re going to need a TFTP server as some point in your career. It may be to upload a new software image, backup a config, or some other reason. Tftpd32 takes your run of the mill TFTP server and adds a few more features including: Tftp Client, DHCP server, and Syslog server. Even with these features, the program remains light and quick.
Network Stumbler - If you’re using the bars displayed in the Windows wireless connection manager to determine wireless signal strength, you’re not getting an accurate picture. Net Sumbler will give you a real-time graph of the signal to noise ratio. It will also provide various other pieces of information about the wireless networks it discovers.
PuTTY Connection Manager - PuTTY has been my personal choice for managing network devices from the terminal (Console, Telnet, etc). PuTTY CM is a separate piece of software that uses PuTTY for connections to devices. The biggest advantage of PuTTY CM, for me, is the ability to build a database of Telnet/SSH configurations to network devices. This allows me to quickly connect to a device and automate various tasks at login.