nc (netcat)
Yup, the ol' tried and true swiss army knife of networking - netcat. Netcat has a wide arrange of applications. Please grab it and play with it. I particularly like the function of writing data across the network. For example, using netcat with 'dd' to send an image over a network interface card to another system.

cryptcat
Well, improving upon netcat we have cryptcat. What's the improvement? Cryptcat encrypts the data sent across the network (strong encryption, too!). Very nice.

stunnel
Very similar to netcat and cryptcat, but stunnel uses SSL to encrypt the data. Check it out.

OpenSSH
Hopefully no one is using Telnet anymore. But, in the event you are, here's a great solution to the clear text problem of Telnet. Use OpenSSH to encrypt your transmissions!

nmap
Another classic from days past . . . nmap (Network Mapper). Useful for network mapping, identifying open ports on hosts, and identifying the operating system on hosts. Nmap is probably the first step to see what's out there.

Cheops
Another very cool tool for mapping networks. Cheops will also attempt to identify running services on hosts. In addition, Cheops has SNMP support and a very slick GUI interface. Note: it is a bit dated as no new maintainer has kept it going.

dsniff
A very sick collection of tools for network auditing and pen-testing (and a favorite among those rogue employees!). Some of my favorites are mailsnarf, msgsnarf, urlsnarf, and webspy. This is a very serious collection of utilities for INFOSEC work. A definite must.

Firewalk
Firewalk is a useful tool for assisting in the determination of ACLs on network gateways and in mapping networks. Use this tool to attempt to walk through firewalls.

hping
A very cool TCP/IP packet assembler & analyzer. Hping supports TCP, UDP, ICMP, and RAW-IP protocols.

HUNT
HUNT is another questionable tool. In the hands of script kiddie it poses a risk. But in the hands of a INFOSEC Professional it aids in watching/learning connections and packets. Use it to watch a connection. You can even reset a connection with HUNT.

nemesis
Nemesis is a tool useful for pen-testing as well as a low level learning aid. Nemesis is a packet injection tool.

Nessus
Nessus is one of my personal very favorite open source tools. In a nutshell Nessus is a vulnerability scanner. However, it's much more than that. Nessus has updates for new security holes and exploits almost on a real time basis. Nessus also has a very capable reporting feature. This is a great tool for Vulnerability Assessments.

whisker
Whisker is a classic CGI vulnerability scanner. This tool is very slick. Please check it out!

whisker SSL
The whisker tool with SSL support. Nice.


. . . . Network Utilities . . . .

Ethereal
Ethereal is a very nice protocol analyzer with a very clean GUI. That's all I can say. Other than grab it and check it out.

ngrep
Ngrep . . . grep for network information! TCP, UDP, and ICMP protocals may all be ngrepped!

ntop
Ntop is essentially 'top' for networking; network usage, statistics, traffic sorted by protocols, etc. When you want to see what's happening with your network grab ntop.

iftop
So we have top and ntop. And now there is iftop - designed to show network usage as top shows CPU usage. A sweet little tool to show real time bandwidth between hosts.

tcpdump
Tcpdump is the classic network traffic analyzer. If you have no X Window System GUI available (or if you prefer the command line!) then tcpdump is your tool.


. . . . Intrusion Detection Utilities . . . .

Snort
Snort is a very capable and feature-rich intrusion detection system (IDS). This tool rocks. 'Nuff said.


. . . . Password Utilities . . . .

John the Ripper
John the Ripper (besides have a cool name!) is a solid password cracker.

Crack
Crack is an oldie and goodie password guesser/cracker for *nix systems.


. . . . Filesystem Drivers . . . .

Linux AFS Project
Get your OpenAFS filesystem type driver from here.

Linux BeFS Project
Get your BeFS (BeOS) filesystem type driver from here.

Linux HFS+ Project
Get your HFS+ filesystem type driver from here.

Linux JFS Project

Linux NCPFS Project
Get your NCPFS (Novell Netware) filesystem type driver and utilities here.

Linux NTFS Project
Get your NTFS filesystem type driver from here.

Linux ReiserFS Project
Get your ReiserFS filesystem type driver from here.

Linux XFS Project
Get your XFS filesystem type driver from here.

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