Laurent Chouinard wrote:
So I ask: Is there any hardware product whose sole purpose is to receive
an ethernet cable and record everything internally? I would leave that
device for a few days, then collect it, extract the data, and run my
analysis through Wireshark.
There are, I think, a number of companies that sell devices such as
that, e.g. Solera (found by going to the "Sharkfest '08" page from the
Wireshark home page, and looking at the list of Sharkfest sponsors):
http://www.soleranetworks.com/products/capture-appliances.php
and NetScout, as mentioned in another reply:
http://www.netscout.com/products/infinistream.asp
and (if I'm correctly interpreting what the devices do) Network Instruments:
http://www.networkinstruments.com/products/gigabit/GigaStorProbe.html
and NetQoS:
http://www.netqos.com/solutions/gigastor/index.html
and so on - see the list of vendors of "network monitoring and
management software and appliances" at
http://blog.opusinteractive.com/industry/interop-07-lots-of-opportunities/
I don't know how much those devices cost, though.