Ethernet valdiation - validation

To make it simple, lets assume my company makes cables. I need an easy tool to validate that our cables fully support 100Mb Ethernet connection without any package lost. Is there a program / tool which can perform a full speed test of like an hour and monitor the lost packages as well?
Thanks!

You might have some luck with iPerf. It can stress-test a network connection and measure packet loss. You'd put an iPerf server at one end of the cable, and run the client on a machine at the other end.

To validate a twisted-pair cable for Cat-5e, Cat-6 or Cat-6A you need a professional cable tester (starts at 1000€ or so). Everything else is just try and error. You cannot seriously certify a cable using commodity hardware and some software.

Related

How does the network speed work?

I have connected one laptop to my pc via network cable. and I have shared some files between them. and it took 10MBps to share files but I connected another laptop to my PC and It sent 100MBps. so I would like to know why it happen? and how the file sharing speed depending on...? please help me someone to let it know...
10/100 is switchable between 10Mbps and 100Mbps so your rate of connection will be the slowest rate of the client and server. In this case if you are getting 10Mbps from your pc than you probably have a very old network card that isn't 10/100. Consider upgrading!

Wifi and LAN at same time

As the question states, I have two ethernet devices I need to use. A wifi hotspot for general traffic as well as a LAN connection for local traffic (192.168.1.*). Right now the wifi receives all traffic and disregards the existence of my local LAN devices. I am trying to communicate with this device using python's urllib2 and basic http fetches. The program works partially when I turn one or the other off (turning wifi off makes the LAN code work, and turning LAN off makes wifi/general traffic code work). I believe this is more of an operating system issue than a programming question, but I might be mistaken. I have been messing with the Ethernet setting in system preferences, but nothing has been working so far.
Thanks for the help.
Depending on your needs and degrees of freedom, you can:
1) Easiest: If you can control one or both network ranges, you can put wifi and LAN on different subnets. For example, 192.168.2.* could be LAN traffic, and 192.168.1.* could be wifi. If only the WiFi side has a gateway, then all traffic except 2.* traffic should route through WiFi, and all 1.* traffic goes to the LAN. No change to your computer.
2) Medium: if you don't control the networks, you can define routing rules for the two ports. This lets you say certain IP addresses should be reached thru wifi, vs others thru LAN port. An example in Linux, which I think should work on OS X too: http://linux-ip.net/html/routing-tables.html The trickiest thing is to make sure you won't get in the way when you're in someone else's network. You can do this by creating narrow routing rules, or turning them off when you don't need them. It sounds like you're doing this from a python program, so maybe the program could turn this on and off at start and finish.
3) Slightly more exotic: I wasn't totally sure from your question, but if you're trying to do load balancing (not separate networks), you could create rules to bond together two network ports and spread traffic across them. This isn't something I've done, but real network engineers know how to set this stuff up.
I could expand on one of these if you clarify what you're trying to do and what degrees of freedom you have.
For somebody don't want to do the study you can simply repeat my steps:
Open system preferences
click on Network
(ensure the precedence, first thunderbolt then wifi) click on thunderbolt
Configure IPv4 choose manually
delete router
done!
I have exactly the same user case. But I read this without any network knowledge.
I achieved this by simply following #Nils' 1) instructions. I only understand theses instructions after reading this link

Looking for a GSM modem advice

My application communicates with several GSM electric controllers, that means that I have to send anywhere between one to twenty messages every few hours. right now I'm working with HUAWEI Mobile Connect - 3G. it is a USB device that uses a comm port for the pc communication and I'm using GSMComm to send messages and read/delete messages from the device.
Every two seconds I'm checking the device's storage, and if there is any message, I will then read it and store it locally and then clear the device's storage. I'm not sure if I'm working correctly, but it seems to me as if it is a very unreliable device:
Every time I boot my machine, I must remove the device from the USB or my machine will get stuck at the BIOS start up screen (or whatever the name is).
Very frequently the comm port can become unavailable for some reason. I have to close and re open the port, and at times that may not even help.
In the production machine of my client, when he uses one of his software's that utilize the first comm port, he will get a warning message from the software about problems in the port if the device is plugged in (the device port is around 28 or something).
If you've been using a device which you consider reliable, or have been working with the same device as I work with, or you just think that I'm doing it wrong, I'd like to get an advice from you.
Thanks.
This sounds like an issue with your modem. Have you tried any other models? Consumer USB models tend to be unreliable. The preferred method, though slightly more expensive, is using a commercial grade modem in situations where you need the reliability.
Some modems to look at:
Wavecom Fastrack
Sierra Wireless Airlink
These use a serial port or ethernet to communicate with the host which is far more reliable. Serial ports may not be available in your particular situation but even a USB to RS232 adapter will be more reliable.
One further option is to use a smartphone, there are several applications that you can act as a gateway through HTTP.
SMS Gateway for Android:
https://market.android.com/details?id=eu.apksoft.android.smsgateway&hl=en
i have not used this method, but it seems like some people are having luck with it. it may not be any more reliable then your USB modem though.
Hope that answers your question.
I have used WaveCom's modem for sending messages in bulks and found it to be reliable. One difference though, in my implementation was i used Kannel as an SMSC, so my queues were automatically handled by Kannel. But sending multiple requests like 40+ per minute didnt pose any problems for me.
Hope this helps.

Redirect Traffic from NIC to Another NIC On Separate Networks While Using Remoting

The project I'm working on is to handle data capture from scan guns (Pocket PC 2003) and process this data on a host (Win XP) then into our inventory database on a separate server (Win 2000). This is all driven by the Remoting framework provided by MS and As Good As It Gets (http://gotcf.net). The application is complete enough for a general proof of concept with both the client and server working properly while in the emulator.
All is well until I began to test using actual scan guns. Due to security concerns, the scanners are on a separate network (for clarification the 10 network) than the server (the 15 network). My development machine has dual NIC connected to both networks and can communicate with both independently. However, I am having issues with my application receiving information from the 10 network using .Net Remoting, and then sending out information to the server on the 15 network via a third party app (Combination of ODBC, Btrieve, and OLE).
Is there anyway to process information from one network then update the server on another?
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Note: I'm not very familiar with networking, thus I may be calling it the wrong name but the gun IP's start with 10...* and the server IP's start with 15...*
So long as the computer's routing table is properly configured, you shouldn't have to worry about this from your application. So long as you're using the proper IP addresses, the networking stack should take care of delivering things to the right place.
You might want to check the output of "route print" (at least I think that was available on WinXp -- if not, someone else will likely post the correct command for XP soon). In any way, you should see what network destinations are configured for which interfaces. You'll need to make sure that the server's IP on the 15 network will properly route via the interface you want (ie. the lowest-cost matching destination/netmask lists your 15 interface).
The issue seems to stem from both the NIC cards not set up properly and a so far unresolved issue with the frameworks I've chosen.
To solve the NIC problem, the easiest solution I'd found had me clear the default gateway on the 10 network.
The other issue deals with recreating the remoting objects after they've been destroyed. I currently have to warm boot the scanner in order to re-connect to the host. In order to correct this issue I'm going to contact As Good As It Gets to see what their input is. Damn firewall

How do you diagnose network issues on Windows?

I often run into problems where I can't get something to connect to something else. I usually forget to check something obvious. Can you help with:
A tip/technique for diagnosing a connection issue
The name of a tool or application that can help (and the situation in which it's useful)
I know the question is a little non-specific, but hopefully the answers can form a useful starting point for anybody who's stuck trying to get computers/programs talking to each other.
Please can you give one answer per answer so the best ones can be voted up.
Simple checks to run when debugging network problems:
Has each machine got an IP address, Go to command prompt and run ipconfig. Key things to check here are the interfaces and ensuring the appropriate ones have IP addresses.
Check both machines IP addresses are in the same range and subnet if you are running it on an internal or Virtual network.
Try pinging each machine from the other to see if they can communicate with each other. Note that some firewalls will block ping requests.
If Pinging fails then check to see if firewalls are active. If the communication is within a 'safe' internal network then try disabling the firewalls and re-pinging.
If the connections are over a wireless network then check signal strength.
If pinging fails and you are connecting through several networks then try running a tracert to see at which will may show you where on the network the connection is failing.
If you are able to ping but not connect then check firewall settings and network connection settings. Windows 2000+ has the capability of setting port an ip access on a connection properties.
Try drawing a network diagram of the connections to help in visualising the problem.
If you are connecting through routers, firewalls and loadbalancers then check that all devices are not tied to any specific ip addresses and that the IP address redirection (if in place) is correct. Also check any NAT logs to see if connections are being received and properly re-directed.
Wireshark
Latest versions of ProcMon
netstat
Wireshark www.wireshark.org
Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows.
Features:
Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time
Live capture and offline analysis
Standard three-pane packet browser
Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others
Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility
The most powerful display filters in the industry
Rich VoIP analysis
Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer® (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments Observer, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others
Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly
Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB, Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platfrom)
Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2
Coloring rules can be applied to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis
Output can be exported to XML, PostScript®, CSV, or plain text.
work the OSI model from the bottom up
Physical (Do you have a network adapter/connection)
Link layer (arp, ethernet port blocked by network team (I've seen this where locked down environments see two MAC addresses coming from one workstation port and shut down the port)
Network layer (ipconfig, tracert, ping,)
Do you have a network address (DHCP, fixed)
Are you on a proper subnet/have routing between subnets
Is something in the middle blocking you
firewalls, routing tables
When in doubt, check to see if the windows firewall is messing with your communications. 8 times out of 10, it's at fault.
Using tracert is a good start to see how far along the chain you are getting.
For virtual machines it's usally a good idea to make sure you have the loopback adapter set correctly in the Host os.
Most frequently used tool is the ping. It can be used both to test your connection and the availability of a target
Second tool is the tracert if you want to see where the packets get lost.
For more advanced debugging I use the following tools: nmap, wireshark, etc.
Windows has a netstat utility which is pretty similar to the Unix netstat and can do a number of different things that might help you solve network issues.
Random example:
netstat -r displays routing information
netstat /? for usage information
Since you said you're using 2 virtual machines I would hazard a guess that both machines are setup in a NAT configuration (rather than a unique network device) -- In the NAT configuration, neither machine would (typically) be able to ping the other.
If you're familiar with the command line, you can try the "netstat" command.
You can also try "arp -a" to list all the IP/MAC addresses known to your PC.
The "tracert [ip address]" command will show you how many gateways/routers your packets jump through on their way to their destination. (This is probably not helpful if both machines are on the same network, though.)
And don't forget to check your Windows firewall settings.
Otherwise, if you want to get down and dirty, you can try the packet sniffer known as Wireshark: http://www.wireshark.org/ (aka. Ethereal)
Pull the network cable out
If you can get some communications to a device (eg a ping), but can't get your program to talk to a service on the computer. Then, try pulling the network cable out and see if the ping stops. This will verify you're communicating with the computer you really think you are.
On windows i user PortQueryUI : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24009
DNS activity: Portable DNS Cache and Firewall;
General network activity: Wireshark, Network Monitor;
Windows utilities: ping, netstat, nslookup.
You need to be use the process of elimination, for example if you can ping the ip address but not the hostname then there's DNS issues. If you can ping the system but not connect to a share etc.
DNS out of sync
If you're using a virtual machine and you perform a roll-back on it, then it could become out of sync with the DNS (Domain name server). Try to remove and re-add the machine to the domain, or if you've got access to the DNS machine, then get it to flush its cache.

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