Sniffing Switched Network

Hello,

Does anybody know how to sniff a switched network?

I have a network of about 50 and sometimes I would like to see what is going through some workstations. I do not want to install a sniffer on each one. Or is there something like a client/server setup where I can host the main program on mine and just put a lightweight one on theirs?...

Thanks for the help.

SLM

O.k., thanks

They have ported it to 9x/NT/2K/XP. It requires cygwin and WinPcap.

I have not tried it yet but will very soon.

Thanks for the help

To sniff a switched network is one of the coolest things one can do I recon [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Thank goodness there are people out there trying really hard to make our dreams come true, and two these are ALoR & NaGA who have produced 'Ettercap' and runs under Linux, but I think they have also managed to port a version to the Windows o/s.

Ettercap is a very powerful sniffer that uses various methods (like arp poissioning) to trick the switch and make it forward packets to the port that your sniffing PC is on.

You can download your copy from ettercap.sourceforge.net/

Cheers,

Or u can span the switch ports for a limited period of time.

This can only be done with an managed switch.

Kind regards,

John Bruijntjes

If you want to see what is going on some of the switches, you can also hook up a HUB (not a linksys hub, as it is actually a switch) and put all the workstations you wish to watch (as well as the workstation that has the protocol analyzer on it).

In my case, I used to put my SQL Server on one of the ports as well as the Protocol Analyzer and watched that way. This worked because the only networked traffic we had was from all the workstations to the SQL Server.

You don't want to do this all the time as it will slow down the network.