Free network software for linux

Network technology evolves quickly, but available bandwidths are still not sufficient for fast transfers of big files to a bunch of clients (for example populating operating systems installation images).

This paper describes Multicasting Master-Slave Network Filesystem (mmsnfs) -- a new method of distributing entire filesystem among several client-machines simultaneously and efficiently.

Moreover it provides mechanisms for modifying distibuted filesystem structure reliably and securing it against introducing inconsistencies. It is designed to be used in small networks of similarly-configured machines, for instance university labs or internet cafes.

NSH is intended to handle configuration for interfaces, bridging, routing, packet filtering, NAT, and ISAKMP. It presents the user with a vaguely cisco-like interface.

It also gives the user access to system information and diagnostics. NSH replaces the userland commands which handle these functions, and talks directly to the OpenBSD kernel (with exceptions for pfctl, isakmpd, and dhcpd).

NSH is completely free, it only incorporates code with BSD-style licenses.

The current version fixes bugs from the last release and brings NSH up to speed for OpenBSD 3.7 and 3.7-current.

For the next major release, Im planning on some IPsec, OSPF, BGP, and DHCP functionality, and possibly ping and other functions. (Also, a rework of the CLI code might happen) The CLI is functional for information/diagnostics, and configuration of pf/nat/altq, interfaces, bridging, and routing.

KDE Network Mapper is a network discovery, probing, and scanning tool. It is a KDE GUI for nmap.
Individual hosts or entire subnets can be scanned simultaneously, and the results are shown in the interface as queries finish, so the user neednt wait for the entire scan to finish.
Main features:
- Save to/Load from simple XML format.
- NMap Scanning.
- NMap XML Import.
Enhancements:
- Removed KDE 3.1 support...seriously, upgrade.
- Migrated to UIC for the prefs, more UIC coming soon.
- Refactored the host info page.
- We have graphics now!
- Near full revamp of nmap code, new parsing, scanning, and presentation.
- The automake code is less braindead now.
- Stability has increased overall, as well as usefullness.
- Seriously, soo many changes, if you want the details, than diff -Naur it.

Netdiscover is a network address discovering tool that was developed mainly for those wireless networks without DHCP servers, though it also works on wired networks. It sends ARP requests and sniffs for replies.

Network Tracker and Management is a Web-based network management application.
Network Tracker and Management can store information about all of your network devices, and allows you to track all changes and updates made to the device.
Having this information readily available will enhance your ability to troubleshoot network problems.
Enhancements:
- The documentation was updated to include more details on the setup of the database for the network tracking system.

Deep Network Analyzer is an flexible, open and extensible deep network analyzer (software server) and architecture for gathering and analyzing network packets, network sessions and applications protocols, passively off enterprise class networks.
DNA is designed to be used for Internet Security, Intrusion detection, Network Management, Protocol and Network Analysis, Information Gathering, Network Monitoring applications.
DNA runs as a distributed application under a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) environment and is portable across many OS environments, including: Network appliances, Switches and Routers.
Main features:
- Deep packet and session processing (layers 2-7)
- Configurable processing and output:
- Layer 4 Packet flows
- Layer 4-7 Stateful Sessions flows (client/server flow pairs)
- Layer 7 Packet and Session Application protocol Parsing (HTTP, DNS, P2P, VoIP, etc)
- Application protocol parsing toolkit enables easy devlopment of new new protocol parsers.
- Support for both symmetric and asymmetric routing links.
- Targeting based full session capture facility, like a real time targeted TCPDump.
- Flexible targeting from IP address, port tuple to application sensitive targeting.
- Configurable and extensible output adaptor utilizing OpenAdaptor able to send output to a varity of resources including: Flat file, Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, Sybase, Sockets, JMS, RMI, WebService.
- Extensible real time collection engine portable across many OS/Packet processing environment :
- Specialized linux drivers mechanisms
- Network Appliances
- Network Switches / Routers
- Highly paralleliszed for increased performance over multi processor environment
- System metadata dictionary externalizes processing type definition
Enhancements:
- Adoption of OpenAdaptor(tm) as the Output Adapter mechanism.
- Support for local-only administration.
- A new targeted packet capture parser, new run scripts, and a new install mechanism.
- Many bugfixes.

snmpmondb project can track network traffic usage for local and remote hosts via SNMP. A few simple Web pages are included to show the resultant data in various graphs.