SMAC (Software MAC) is a simple GUI utility to list details of your MAC adresses, IPCONCIG information and allow you to change or even spoof MAC Address on the fly. SMAC also has a simple 1-click restart for the network adapters when you need to refresh settings.
If you are a *NIX person then you should probably be aware of the usefulness of GREP utility. GREP is a utility to filter specific text entries from various inputs like a file, console/terminal output in *NIX. ngrep is a free tool which in simple words is a grep tool for network traffic where you can filter specific traffic patterns on any or all interfaces and ports.
Sometime ago, we wrote about Nagios-Checker add-on for Firefox that sits and pops alerts for you when your Nagios Alarms or Alerts. Now, we have Nagstamon which goes one step further where it isn’t for Firefox but rather just sits there in the taskbar or floats around the screen to inform you in realtime about the status of your Nagios monitored network. Its free opensource and can work in Windows and Linux (GNOME/KDE).
Sometimes your Windows Vista will fail to obtain an IP Address from a DHCP server like your Broadband or Wireless router. This is due to a design change in Windows Vista. Unlike in Windows XP (and in the later Windows 7 Beta), Windows Vista DHCP Discovery packets have Broadcast flag enabed by default. This means some of the routers or devices acting as a DHCP server which doesn’t support Broadcast flag set in incoming DHCP discovery packetsmay fail to serve the Windows Vista machine with an IP Address.
Starting Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, to prevent address scans of IPv6 addresses based on the known company IDs of network adapter manufacturers, Windows by default generate random interface IDs for non-temporary autoconfigured IPv6 addresses, including public and link-local addresses. A public IPv6 address is a global address that is registered in DNS and is typically used by server applications for incoming connections, such as a Web server.
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