Network Tools

[FordGT90Concept]

2./ Did you consider an HTML output, not just csv and txt.

I can do that. Might as well throw XML in there too for good measure. I have some code I can dig up from a previous HTML dump venture for formatting (including show/hide components)...

3./ Allow IntranetScan and RemotePortScan to be run as a service, executing on a periodic basis, and saving the results to a file, even better if pointed to an FTP location

That would require a separate application. NetTool is not designed to be installed as a service. Services generally don't have a GUI either (two separate applications) so yeah...that would be a big, mostly unrelated project to what we have now. Of course, a lot of the code would translate but it would still work differently.

4./ MAC address please on IntranetScan

The only way to get MAC address would be via WMI. If the device isn't responding to WMI requests, there's no way to get the MAC address.

Edit: MAC Address implemented (WMI).

 

[Kreij]

This is the (not) official response to Lemon's input.

1./ Please put date/time in the output, which will therefore be spooled to print.

It does not matter if we do this or not as you have no real grasp of objective reality.
You are living in a time zone that make the time zone for Saturn look like a local one.

2./ Did you consider an HTML output, not just csv and txt. Combined with 3, that would be interesting

HTML is so old school. We have created something called "WYSIWWWYTS".
It stands for "What You See Is What We Want You To See."
It's far better and makes our lives less stressful.

3./ Allow IntranetScan and RemotePortScan to be run as a service, executing on a periodic basis, and saving the results to a file, even better if pointed to an FTP location

We could do this, but you would forget it is running and bury the interwebz with your crap packets. Besides, we know that you have been infected by the virus the Umbrella Corporation released and are really a flesh eating zombie.

3B./ If 3. is too tricky a change in coding design, then have two start buttons, one which is the regular "EXECUTE" and another which is "REPEAT". In global settings you set the REPEAT time cycle, eg. 15 secs, 60 secs, 300 secs, 3600 secs.

Two buttons is a bit much for someone who can only think of eating brains.

4./ MAC address please on IntranetScan

The MAC address is a good idea for normal folk, but would just allow you to hunt down unsuspecting flesh bags to quench your hunger. Sorry, our lawyers won't let us.

5./ A print header would be useful. If managing multiple sites or network segments, it would be useful to be able to have a note WHAT (Network) the results were from

This is a good idea. I recommend entering you GPS coordinants. That way we can send an armed team assistant to help you.

6./ PLEASE make sure the print spooler doesnt force Letter size. The rest of the world is on A4. MUCH MUCH appreciated. There is NOTHING worse than having to unblock a printer demanding Letter to be manually fed into the cassette tray :grrr: ESPECIALLY if it is a remote printer

Like you care about page size as you are munching on someone's liver.

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Yeah, I've had a long day, but it's always good to have a little fun.
A big thanks to Lemon for his ideas, and let's hear more from all of you.

PS. I am really looking forward to seeing those traffic lights and Kreij trying to spool them in color

No problem, they light you up in the night vision scope.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Ford, please implement FLASHING traffic lights. That will REALLY SCREW Kreij and his print spooler, LOL. That will give him nightmares. Can't wait to see how he implements flashing ink. Perhaps through some concept of folding the paper and flicking it back and forwards

Back to point 3. While you have the option to save as, as a manual step, perhaps consider this being AUTOMATIC. When you execute, there is are output files created for each format, perhaps with a lastrun.xxx filename. The manual save you currently have in "edit" ("file"?) would allow you to save to a filename of your choice.

The automatic save, esp. the HTML file, would allow me to run a separate folder watch service to take the file and dump it to my webserver, so I can access it from the internet.

That way I can monitor who is on my network/hotspot.

Better still if you could tell (in options) WHERE this lastrun.xxx would be saved. That way I could run nettool on the same network as the server, or even the server itself, without having to have a separate folder watch service running in the background. Clearly this is only useful if nettool can be set to re-run the last scan on a periodic basis as mentioned in 3B above.

PS. THANKS for the MAC info on scan. That is very useful of IDing larger networks, esp. wireless users, and for setting a list of approved/managed ACL

***

Kreij. Go to sleep. You are losing it . Whatever happens, DONT TALK to anyone on the way home.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

XML, HTML, CSV, and TXT formats are supported with options. There will be nothing under Edit, instead, it is all being moved to File --> Export... where a viewer will pop up letting you select which type of output, which options to output, preview the output, and whether to save the output to file or copy to clipboard.

Intranet Scan now has a "Repeat" section with four new settings (SaveToFileOrFolder, SaveToPath, SaveToType, and SaveToOptions). Combined, these settings are effectively the same as described above. Yes, it automatically saves/loads these settings as part of Intranet Scan settings.


NetTool will never be compiled as a service. Everything about it is built around the GUI so no GUI = no function. I'm not saying a "NetMonitor" or something won't be released in the future that does run as a service but it won't ever be NetTool.


Remember, Intranet Scan is very demanding. On your average computer, it could increase the number of threads running by 36% or more (673 to 914 for me). Use at your own peril.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Beta 7 uploaded. Too many chaneges to list but most on the surfaces are in "File -> Export..." and Intranet Scan.

 

[Kreij]

Good morning Gents (or whatever salutation is applicable in your time zone),

Kreij. Go to sleep. You are losing it . Whatever happens, DONT TALK to anyone on the way home.

I lol'd at that. I just post stuff like that to remind everyone that no matter what we are doing or how long we are working on it, there is always time to sit back, relax and have a little fun. I just used your post for the response because I know you can take a joke.

@Ford , Got the latest. I will work on it as I have time this weekend. Get some sleep, my friend.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Looking great. I like the export tool and preview. Nice!

Quick comments/suggestions (please excuse their brevity)

1./ Intranet scan is quite slow compared to Radmin's Advanced LAN scanner, and Advanced IP scanner

2./ Perhaps allow a double click on the intranetscan output (e.g. click on an identified IP) and then expand that for a port scan, see the Radmin tools above to get an idea what I mean

3./ Consider renaming "comma limited..." to csv, "hypertext markup language" to html etc. etc. Much quicker for the brain to process. Anyone who needs txt, html, xml EXPLAINING to them, wouldnt be using this tool in the first place!

The tool is coming on really nicely. Look forward to the REPEAT options working

 

[FordGT90Concept]

1./ Intranet scan is quite slow compared to Radmin's Advanced LAN scanner, and Advanced IP scanner

The more options enabled, the slower it will go. With no options selected, it completes in about 6 seconds for me. Remember, most of the delays are because of an arbritary timeout I can't adjust.

2./ Perhaps allow a double click on the intranetscan output (e.g. click on an identified IP) and then expand that for a port scan, see the Radmin tools above to get an idea what I mean

Once remote port scan is added, I might be able to make it switch to and autofill remote port scan. You'd have to click Start to make it begin the scan though (making sure the options are correct).

3./ Consider renaming "comma limited..." to csv, "hypertext markup language" to html etc. etc. Much quicker for the brain to process. Anyone who needs txt, html, xml EXPLAINING to them, wouldnt be using this tool in the first place!

I could maybe stick "TXT - ", "CSV - ", etc. on the front of them so they stand out.

The tool is coming on really nicely. Look forward to the REPEAT options working

It does work.

 

[Kreij]

I'm working on getting the print engine all functioning correctly.
There are many things to consider and I want it to work as well as possible from the start, so please bear with me. and you all will have the code to test in a couple of days.

Back to coding.....

 

[Kreij]

Comments ?

I also noticed that if you type an address in DNS Record, hit start and then repeat it adds to the list of records. Is this by design?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It looks good. Three things...

1) Add labels to the tables (found in Table.Label, I think). In your example, it should show Questions, Answers, Authorities, and Additionals, respectively.

2) Do not display empty tables.

3) Why does dailytech's name server list Dell and TechPowerUp?

I also noticed that if you type an address in DNS Record, hit start and then repeat it adds to the list of records. Is this by design?

It is supposed to recycle controls every time Start is pressed. The code looks correct so I'm not sure what is going wrong.

 

[Kreij]

It looks good. Three things...

1) Add labels to the tables (found in Table.Label, I think). In your example, it should show Questions, Answers, Authorities, and Additionals, respectively.

eh? More info please. It displays like the TextBox on the control.

2) Do not display empty tables.

No problem.

3) Why does dailytech's name server list Dell and TechPowerUp?


It is supposed to recycle controls every time Start is pressed. The code looks correct so I'm not sure what is going wrong.

I typed in one IP and hit start, then cleared the property and hit start again and it added it, and once again in the example. n2b7src

Okay, I would just like to add, DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE COMMENTS ON ANYTHING?

Sorry for yelling, but we depend on you guys for feedback.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

eh? More info please. It displays like the TextBox on the control.

Use Export... and output DNS Records as a Text Document. You'll see how it displays the table label before outputting the table.

I typed in one IP and hit start, then cleared the property and hit start again and it added it, and once again in the example. n2b7src

I'll have to look into it when you are done.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Okay, I would just like to add, DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE COMMENTS ON ANYTHING?

Sorry for yelling, but we depend on you guys for feedback.

If NOONEELSE says anything for a week, I will give you some more feedback... and suggestions... but for now I'll be zip.

 

[Kreij]

Use Export... and output DNS Records as a Text Document. You'll see how it displays the table label before outputting the table.

Got it. I do, however, see that your text output displays headers for empty tables.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Got it. I do, however, see that your text output displays headers for empty tables.

Bah!

 

[Kreij]

Print Preview completely rewritten to facilitate a more consistent interface accross the app.

Still have a few things to complete.
Comments?

 

[lemonadesoda]

Looks good! (apart from possible improvement of tab alignment in above example you showed)

 

[Kreij]

Thanks lemon, I added a bunch more settings to the property grid. Ford is going to think I'm insane. lol

I've added ...
- The ability to change the border color on the boxes
- The ability to change the border width on the boxes
- the ability to make the header/footer fonts and colors different from the table text


Tab alignment? Ummm ... there aren't any tabs.
Anyway, the GUI is in a raw form I need to clean it up and align the controls and stuff like that.
I also need to make all the buttons above the preview function perfectly (well, at least as expected. lol)

One questions. I am adding the option of rounded (beveled) corners on the header/footer boxes. Do you also want the option of doing a color fill on the boxes with the option of having color gradients?

Speak now or forever hold you peace.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Come off it! We dont need options about square or round corners on the header! But look at your print preview. The columns (data) dont line up. Can you fix that?

PS.Do a preview test on A4... just to check nothing falls off.

NOW I have a curved ball for you... I'm using an A5 filofax. Any chance of an A5 printout? http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails-A5+Domino+Filofax++Red-32784763.html

Oh, one more thing... your preview looks a bit tight in the margins. Get a hole-punch to file the data, and the punch will punch out some numbers. Default margins on left needed to allow for holepunch.

 

[Kreij]

Features
Hey !! Don't kill me I'm just asking !! Someone in a previous post expressed the idea that they wanted the printouts to be nice. I am just trying to facilitate whatever anyone wants. You can always leave them at the defaults if it is unimportant to you. My thought is I would rather have too much than not enough. Especially since it is easy to implement.

Columns
The columns line up with the column headers. When there are more (or less) headers, the data columns are aligned below them. If the data width of a specific table requires more space, then the columns must accomodate that. Each table (data) has it's own columns (headers). I could do a size aggreagation to make sure everything lines up, but that would leave a ton of white space in the tables that do not need that kind of room.

Page Sizes
I don't care if you are using the A$$ hat format. If you want it to work I will make it happen.
Looking into A5F specifically for you, my friend.
In all honesty the Page sizes are a huge PITA. But it's a neccessity, so it will happen.

Hole Punch
For you lemon, anything. lol Thanks for all your input. I really appreciate it.

 

[Kreij]

I didnt mean it in a negative way... only dont get carried away!

Ideas for Ford:http://www.packettrap.com/product/pt360_pro.aspx

I know that you didn't mean it in a negative way.
I'm trying to make the printing part as flexable as I can to try to support whatever people want.
This also allows for easy addition in the future.

About you link ... If Ford decides to change the entire way the application outputs data I am going to make sure you are brought up at the next Hit Squad meeting.

 

[Kreij]

In my best estimate, Ford wanted to write a light weight application that would be useful for viewing network related stuff. I don't think (and Ford can prove me wrong) that the application was meant to be a total network management suite of tools. Between Ford and I, we could make this happen, but that is not what I think Ford was shooting for.

What Ford created was a network browsing tool that is the fastest I've ever seen. I can scan my entire network at work for unused IPs in less than a minute including details. I cannot find anything like this elsewhere, and have since dumped all my other tools in favor of this application.

I agreed to write the print portion of this for Ford so that he could work on finishing the rest of the modules and not have to worry about it. I can make this as raw as people want, or as fancy. I really don't care as coding this is the way I relax in the evenings. Some people sit on the couch and watch reruns and laugh at their farts. I sit a my computer and write code and laugh at my farts.

All that concerns me is that you guys let us know what you want (or don't want) so we can give you a tool that is painfully fast and gives you the output you want.

Cheers

 

[lemonadesoda]

Whatever happens,dont bloat the tool! I removed the link... it was only for tangential sense-checking. I tried the tool, then uninstalled it pretty quick... I didnt like it. But the process/exercise was useful... what should be in "lean" what shouldnt. Does an icon based toolbar make sense, or not... whatever... probably a distraction... so dont waste your time on it. Hence removed my earlier post.

You guys are doing a great job. Cant wait to see nettool2 with all nettool 1.7 functionality, AND THE PRINT

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Thanks lemon, I added a bunch more settings to the property grid.

The more the merrier. It will just take some work to save/load.

It looks very good.

...laugh at their farts.

Yay for funny sounds!