["S. Faizi" <salfaizi@xxxxxxx>]

Title: Message

Is MRTG a commercial tool? If it is available for free, where does one download it from.

 

Regards,

Sal

----- Original Message -----

From: Alistair.McGlinchy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To: braggman@xxxxxxx

Cc: ethereal-users@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 7:08 AM

Subject: RE: [Ethereal-users] Ethereal help

Royce,

 

I think you missed the point of my previous email.  Ethereal is an indispensable network management tool but it is not a one-stop shop for network performance analysis. (It ranks second only to perl, in the order I install software on a new PC).

 

Start off by monitoring your servers, routers and switches using MRTG or whatever network monitoring system you prefer.

*    Understand which network devices are the biggest users.

*    Understand when traffic levels are high (and check to see if the problems disappear when traffic levels are not)

*    Understand whether performance problems are to do with errors, packet loss, congestion or (as always happens) is an application issue nothing to do with the network.

 

Once you have a fair idea of knowing *what* is wrong with your network (eg "My server is sending tons of broadcast messages"),  should you a use Ethereal to find out *why* things are going wrong. (eg My server is spamming ARP messages to get the MAC address of another server I removed from the network last week).

 

I like to think of Ethereal as a microscope, where as MRTG is more like a CCTV camera. A daily scan through the CCTV TV tells whether there's a need for forensic research using Ethereal (and Netflow/RMON2/ntop data too).

 

Cheers,

 

Alistair