Network Toolbox is a freeware tool to examine both the network settings on your Mac, and your local area network. In addition, it can perform basic functions such as DNS lookups, pings, and trace routes.
This software is still under development, and this is a preliminary release. If you find any bugs, or have suggestions for additional features or improvements, please don't hesitate to pass them along! Send them to me at: network@blackcatsystems.com
Chris Smolinski
Black Cat Systems
Using Network Toolbox
When you first start the program, you'll be presented with the following window, showing some basic statistics regarding Open Transport on your machine:
 
Tools
Under the Tools menu, you'll find the following, which are explained below:
Network Interfaces
TCP Status
UDP Status
Network Addresses
DNS Lookup...
Ping...
Trace Route...
ARP Cache Report
Route Status Report
Appletalk Status
Appletalk List
Network Interfaces
This brings up a window showing all of the network interfaces configured on your machine:
 
TCP Status
This brings up a window showing all of the active TCP connections on your machine, as well as any local ports open for connections (listening). Well known ports are listed by name (such as telnet) rather than port number.
 
UDP Status
This brings up a window showing all of the active UDP connections on your machine.
 
Network Addresses
This brings up a window showing machines which have been identified as being part of your LAN (Local Area Network). You can click on the Scan button to select a range to search, or click Add to manually add an IP address.
 
If you create a text file called addresses.dat and place it in the files folder, you can assign names to each IP address. Each line in the file should contain the IP address followed by the machine name and a return. For example:
192.168.0.2 iMac
192.168.0.3 Chris
192.168.0.4 PC
192.168.0.9 iBook
192.168.0.15 Quadra
192.168.0.25 Router
192.168.0.60 linux
Clicking on a machine will bring up another window, showing the TCP ports identified on that machine:
 
Clicking the Scan button will allow a range of ports to be scanned. Clicking the Add button will allow a single port to be added to the list. Well known ports have their name listed as well as the port number.
Warning! Don't go around scanning the ports of other people's computers! Not only is it wrong, but you may find yourself locked out of their machines, or entire networks!
DNS Lookup...
Enter either the IP address or domain name of the host, and you'll be presented with both the IP address and domain name of that host.
 
Ping...
Enter either the IP address or domain name of the host, and Network Toolbox will begin sending ICPM Ping requests, and displaying how long (in milliseconds) it took to get a reply, and statistics such as the maximum, minimum, and average reply times, as well as the number and percentage of lost packets.
 
Please note that in order to prevent malicious attacks, some hosts do not reply to such packets.
Trace Route...
Enter either the IP address or domain name of the host, and Network Toolbox will begin sending packets to determine the route to that machine, as well as the response time for each machine along the way.
 
Please note that in order to prevent malicious attacks, some hosts do not reply to such packets.
ARP Cache Report
Displays the Open Transport ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) cache report. This allows you to see the ethernet (MAC) addresses of the various machines on your ethernet LAN.
 
Route Status Report
Displays the Open Transport routing status report.
 
Appletalk Status
Displays information about the status of Appletalk on this machine.
 
Appletalk List
Displays a list of all Appletalk names found.
 
Please be sure to take a look at the other chapters!
