Networking / Beginners

Monitoring on the Mac

Apple has created many system monitors for the Macintosh. Some, as with Windows system monitors, analyze on the computer; but many system monitors manage the network as well as the computer. Most of the network monitors you find are for the Mac OS X, although you can search the Internet and find monitors for earlier Mac operating systems. Many Mac monitors employ PGP.

  • InterMapper is one of the most common and popular shareware programs. Made by Dartware, LLC, InterMapper shows you a graphical view of your computer network, including routers, servers, workstations, and so on. InterMapper includes an autodiscovery feature that locates your resources and creates the network map for you. It also uses various built-in network probes, such as ping and SNMP, to help you locate connection problems, track e-mails, and find failed network components (www.intermapper.com).
  • AysMon (Are You Serving Monitor) is one system monitor that also analyzes the network. Not only can you monitor your Cable or DSL connection, you can also learn about other network services, such as login, disk space usage, and open network ports. AysMon is manufactured by Pepsan & Associates, Inc., and it is freeware. AysMon requires Mac OS X version 10.x or higher. You can get it from www.apple.com.
  • Net Monitor, by Guy Meyer, is a shareware program for Mac OS X 10.1 or later. Net Monitor uses various graphs to display network information, such as network configuration, location, data throughput, and so on. For a single-user version, Net Monitor costs around $8 if you plan to continue using it after you try it out (www.macupdate.com).
  • LoginManager is another application for the Macintosh that is also shareware. Made by Bright Light Software, LoginManager enables you to limit login time for each user, monitors disk usage for each user, and displays a basic login time accounting (www.zope.org).
  • Granet (Graph Networking) is a freeware utility by Pepsan & Associates, Inc. Granet is a utility that displays the throughput of active computers on the network in a graph. Granet works with Ethernet, AirPort, and PPP (www.pepsan.com/granet/).
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In this tutorial:

  1. Network Management Tool
  2. Understanding Network Management
  3. Using Windows Monitoring Tools
  4. Using Net Watcher
  5. Monitoring the network with Windows XP
  6. Using System Monitor
  7. Understanding Privacy
  8. Monitoring on the Mac
  9. Linux Network Monitoring