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Rodney Thayer, member of the Network World Lab Alliance , is a big believer in using open source tools when simulating enterprise environments for testing purposes. "I dispute vigorously the claim some vendors make that using open source tools is not production-grade testing. [They] bury open source technology in their products, some even without attribution," says Thayer, who is an independent network security consultant. "They can't tell me that [a tool like] OpenSSL is not good enough to test against when they are simultaneously claiming it's good enough to sell to me."
Tools: AirJack and File2Air
Source: sourceforge.net
What do they do? AirJack is a device driver for 802.11 raw frame injection and reception, and File2Air puts the AirJack contents on the wireless network.
Who likes them and why? Wireless testing guru Henderson relies on these two tools regularly. "File2Air allows us to develop 802.11 packet types and insert them into AirJack wireless LAN client drivers," he says. "We can test how an access point reacts and also get a good view on access points from how they react to differing streams. We also use File2Air to emulate error conditions and perform denial-of-service simulations."
Tool: Ethereal
Source: www.ethereal.com
What does it do? This network protocol analyzer, which runs on Unix, Linux and Windows systems, can dissect more than 650 protocols (for a list of the protocols, click here). With Ethereal, users can access live network data or view, edit and save data-captured files.
Who likes it, and why? Ethereal gets high marks from Newman and Andress for supporting an array of network devices, running on many platforms, and being easily extensible and easy to use. "It's got the best interface and the most options available," says Andress, adding that her favorite feature is the ability to monitor traffic at the packet level so she can watch specific communications while ignoring others.
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