The Dude: Network Topology

There are more than 20 computers in my network at work and keeping track of who is using which computer and if it's "up" or not is important. Using a Network Topology can be very helpful. I've been using The Dude for 2 years now and I find it increases my network organization 100 fold. It also makes me look really cool when people walk by my office.

(Click image for larger view)

The Dude network monitor is a new application by MikroTik which can dramatically improve the way you manage your network environment. It will automatically scan all devices within specified subnets, draw and layout a map of your networks, monitor services of your devices and alert you in case some service has problems

Some of it's features:

• The Dude is free of charge!
• Auto network discovery and layout
• Discovers any type or brand of device
• Device, Link monitoring, and notifications
• Includes SVG icons for devices, and supports custom icons and backgrounds
• Easy installation and usage
• Allows you to draw your own maps and add custom devices
• Supports SNMP, ICMP, DNS and TCP monitoring for devices that support it
• Individual Link usage monitoring and graphs
• Direct access to remote control tools for device management
• Supports remote Dude server and local client
• Runs in Linux Wine environment, MacOSDarwine, and Windows
• Best price/value ratio compared to other products (free of charge)

Scanning your network is a simple as clicking the "Discover" button. This software is very customizable as you can see from the photo above. The Dude is definitely worth looking into.

See where IPs are located with Visual Route

I've taken some time to study the incoming IP addresses that are logged on our router to see who's using ports 40784, 50225 and 23827. One tool that's fun to use is VisualRoute which places the IP trace points on a map of the world. Below are some examples from the site's Live Demo.


Keep in mind these screenshots are from the demo that's run in Java so the actual program looks different. I chose to show these screenies because I am using the free version which doesn't show data on the world map. However, this software gives the user great ways to display the data.

There are 5 versions of this software including a free version which I use.

Honestly I rarely use this software because there are other traceroutes out there and the only appeal this one has for me is the cool mapping of the planet. It makes me look like one of those geeks in the movies that have some super software to trace an IP to a doorstep of a person and show a satellite picture of the kids playing in the backyard.