giebelhaus@umn-cs.arpa (04/13/87)
Has anyone used the LanScan from CMC? Any recommendations? Arpa: Giebelhaus@HI-MULTICS uucp: ihnp4!umn-cs!giebelhaus
phil@amdcad.UUCP (04/16/87)
In article <6857@brl-adm.ARPA> hi-csc!giebelhaus@umn-cs.arpa (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) writes: >Has anyone used the LanScan from CMC? Any recommendations? As far as I can tell, this is also known as the Spider Monitor. Bridge Communications resells it, and I looked at one. It is cute, in a way. It knows about certain protocols and makes looking at them very convenient. Of course, it doesn't know about every protocol and can't be taught by the mere user. This is inconvenient. It has no floppy, so host names, addresses, transmit packets, and filters can't be saved on separate media. It does have non-volatile storage but I'd rather be able to save things on a diskette. It's relatively cheap, useful, but not very powerful. If that's what you want, it will meet your needs. If you want power, you should consider the Excelan LANalyzer or the HP. The LANalyzer is probably more portable too, though it weighs more and is more powerful, since it comes in a Compaq portable PC. The LANalyzer is one fairly lightweight unit with a handle. Ideal from portability considerations. It has a floppy, and you can go into TCP/IP mode so you can either save things on the disk or upload them. Excelan is making(has made?) a programmable packet display utility. I've also been bugging them about downloading /etc/hosts and the ARP table instead of typing each and every name in by hand. There are a lot of good things about the LANalyzer, that's why I bought one. It's a little more than the Spider if you already have a PC. HP is powerful but not much more so than the LANalyzer and it 1) is NOT portable 2) does not use a standard host. I rejected them out of hand for that. (well, if HP didn't design it, it can't be any good) By the way, does anyone make a TCP/IP package for the PC that understands routed or Berkeley RIP? -- Phil Ngai, {ucbvax,decwrl,allegra}!amdcad!phil or amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com