Wireless networking and specialty tools

Techlogix Networx. Vertical Cable. View All. Shop Networking Tools. Enter your text to search Search. About Us. Have a question? Our Live Chat operators are ready to help! Network professionals have jobs that depend on ensuring smooth sailing on the network, but when things go wrong, the right tools are needed to minimize downtime. This guide provides you with the knowledge needed to compile the ultimate set of networking tools. With the tools and equipment in this guide, you have all the tools necessary to keep the network up and running with excellent performance and efficiency.

After reading this guide, you will never be without the tools you need to handle both routine and complex networking maintenance tasks. Choosing the Hand Tools for Networking Professionals Hand tools are the essential allies of the networking professionals. Most of the tools that we have discussed have an in-built tool for skinning wires.

However, there will always come a time when you would want a skinning knife at your side. A crimper tool works by joining two pieces of metal together. It deforms one piece or both in a way that causes them to hold onto one another. You would want a crimp when you want to fix a connector to the end of a cable.

Hand tools are great and all, but you also need to have critical testing equipment to ensure network reliability. First off, you would want to have a quality network cable tester within your tool kit. An effective network testing devices can help you find out what is wrong with the cable. The LED light configuration should differentiate between straight-through, crossovers, or reverse cables. Finding missing wires, open wires, split wires, and short circuits becomes easier and safer because of such tools, making the life of the networking professional more efficient.

Now that we have discussed the hardware side of networking, it is time to move on to the software side. When it comes to analyzing network protocols, there is no comparison to Wireshark. Honestly speaking, it is one of the best free networking tools ever made. When you actually want to go into the bottom of a networking issue, then Wireshark is your best bet. If you are looking at capturing command-lines, or you might want to programmatically trigger packet captures, do not forget about TShark, which comes packed with the Wireshark package.

There is a network present between any two nodes, be it big or small. A ping request between two nodes is good for understanding the trip taken by the small packets. If you actually want to achieve bandwidth, you would want a tool like iPerf.

You can run the client on two ends of a particular network, adjusting the parameters as needed for performance. Upon its execution, it helps to actively measure and report on bandwidth losses and latency problems.

You can also start up multiple connections in order to truly simulate load across networks. It is very handy! We personally recommend using Nmap once a week. Netstumbler is a free Wireless LAN surveying and stumbler tool for Netstumbler is pretty popular because it can display additional information that some stumbler tools cannot. It can show information on signal, noise, and SNR levels so that you can identify weak signals in the network and interference. Download: Get the latest version of NetStumbler from its official site.

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor NPM is one of the most comprehensive network performance monitoring tools for any infrastructure. You can collect performance metrics information from APs, wireless controllers, and their clients.

It also gives you details into the IP addressing information of all APs and their clients. With this tool, you can find the top-talkers users and devices that are consuming the most WiFi bandwidth. With this tool, you can see how much bandwidth a specific device is consuming, and you can even go one step ahead and see the applications that are consuming the most.

Price: PRTG is free for up to sensors. You can extend the number of monitoring sensors by upgrading to the paid license. CommView captures WiFi packets on the air and then makes them available for you to search and filter.

The list displays useful information, like APs, signal strength, network connections, protocols, etc. The tool comes with powerful alerting capabilities, that can let you know when a specific type of traffic is detected through the WiFi.

Aircrack-ng is a bundle of tools used for advanced pen testing, security, and auditing for The software captures packets and can export all data to third party apps. It can also perform algorithms on the captured packets to find security weaknesses.

Download: Get Aircrack-ng from its official site. Kismet can work with a varied number of wireless cards, as long as they support raw monitoring mode rfmon. It also works with additional hardware to capture packets from the air, from WiFi interfaces, Bluetooth, SDR, and more.

Download: Download Kismet from its official site. Omnipeek Network Analyzer is a packet sniffer and network analyzer tool developed by Savvius. Price: For more information on pricing, contact LiveAction sales. Wireshark is one of the most popular free and open-source analyzers for wired and wireless networks. With Wireshark, you can troubleshoot, optimize, and improve the security of You can also capture One of the most useful features provided by this utility is an alarm Figure A.

The software can alert you whenever certain types of traffic are detected. Such a feature could go a long way toward improving Wi-Fi security. The application is designed to detect wireless networks and report on their type, maximum transfer rate, and channel usage.

There is even a graphical representation of each wireless network's amplitude and channel usage Figure B. Figure B inSSIDer 3: Wireless Wizard Wireless Wizard is a free utility that is designed to help you get the best possible performance from your wireless network connection. In addition to providing all manner of statistics about your wireless network, the software offers a series of diagnostic tests you can use to see how well your wireless network is performing.