IT Pro Tuesday #98

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Hello IT Pro,

Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

As always, we’re updating the full list on our website here. Enjoy.

But on with this week's tools...! Here are the most-interesting items that have come across our desks, laptops and phones this week. EveryCloud has no known affiliation with any of these unless we explicitly state otherwise.

Popular Repost: Tool

Axence netTools is a set of ten free tools for network scanning and monitoring. Includes: Netwatch (multiple host availability and response-time monitoring); Network port and service scanner; Wintools (view of launched processes/services, remote register editor and Windows event log view, HDD/RAM/CPU details, custom queries based on WMI protocol); TCP/IP workshop and SNMP browser; Traceroute; NetStat (list of inbound and outbound connections and open ports); Local info (tables with local configuration details, TCP/UDP stats); Lookup (DNS and WHOIS records); Bandwidth test; and NetCheck (LAN hardware and wiring quality check). This was recommended by DollarMindy as an "easy ping monitor with email alerts."

A Cheatsheet

Data Visualisation in Python covers some of the basics of visualisation in Python using matplotlib and seaborn. This cheatsheet can help you make the best use of Python's amazing libraries that support visualization, including 3D visualisations & animations.

A Tip

In order to discover what's connected to your network devices, fahque recommends some powershell magic instead of a tool like LDWin:

Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -MinimumVersion 2.8.5.201 -Force

Set-PSRepository -Name 'PSGallery' -InstallationPolicy Trusted

Install-Module -Name PSDiscoveryProtocol -Force -Confirm:$false

$Packet = Invoke-DiscoveryProtocolCapture -Type LLDP

$output = Get-DiscoveryProtocolData -Packet $Packet

"Computer Name,Port,Switch,Reported Computer,Computer IP"

$env:ComputerName + "," + $output.Port.Substring($output.Port.IndexOf("/")+1,$output.Port.Length - $output.Port.IndexOf("/") - 1) + "," + $output.Device + "," + $output.Computer + "," + $output.IPAddress

A Free Tool

Gns3 (Graphical Network Simulator-3) is a network software emulator that lets you combine virtual and real devices to simulate complex networks. Enables you to build, design and test networks of any size in a risk-free virtual environment, with the world's largest networking community to help out when you get stuck. Uses Dynamips emulation software to simulate Cisco IOS. Thanks for this one goes to fadedgreenpeace.

Another Free Tool

GLPI is an open-source ITSM software tool for planning and managing IT changes. Tracks the complete lifecycle of your IT assets and offers real-time status of your software and licenses. Can manage large IT infrastructures with millions of assets, enabling segmentation by entities with their respective administrative policies and permitted expenditures. trizzosk appreciated it for being,  "Pretty easy to setup for KB purpose. For ticketing - will take some time, but no rocket science. Installation - half a day including compiling php from source."

P.S. Bonus Free Tools

vvildcard offers this Powershell replacement for ping and telnet: Test-NetConnection hostname -Port #

Navi is an interactive cheatsheet tool for the command line. Recommended by dnsf because it "allows you to browse through cheatsheets (that you may write yourself or download from maintainers) and execute commands, with argument values prompted to you. It can be either used as a command or as a shell widget (à la Ctrl-R)."

Have a fantastic week and as usual, let me know any comments.

Graham | CEO | EveryCloud