UNIX network analysis

Understanding your UNIX system network configuration

Martin Brown (mc@mcslp.com), Professional writer, Freelance

Martin Brown has been a professional writer for over eight years. He is the author of numerous books and articles across a range of topics. His expertise spans myriad development languages and platforms -- Perl, Python, Java, JavaScript, Basic, Pascal, Modula-2, C, C++, Rebol, Gawk, Shellscript, Windows, Solaris, Linux, BeOS, Mac OS/X and more -- as well as Web programming, systems management and integration. Martin is a regular contributor to ServerWatch.com, LinuxToday.com and IBM developerWorks, and a regular blogger at Computerworld, The Apple Blog and other sites, as well as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Microsoft. He can be contacted through his Web site at http://www.mcslp.com.

Summary: You can find out a lot about your network by using a variety of different tools. I you want to understand the layout of your network, where packets are going, and what people are doing, then you need to use a variety of different tools that can help you to build up a picture of your network and what is going on. This tutorial examines techniques for monitoring the traffic and content of your UNIX® network and how to read and diagnose problems on your network.

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Date: 05 May 2009
Level: Intermediate
PDF: A4 and Letter (61 KB | 22 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

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Before you start

This tutorial is for UNIX systems administrators who are looking for ways to discover and determine information about their network structure and configuration, including what services and systems are running on different machines. To get the best out of this tutorial, you should have a basic knowledge of the UNIX operating system, and a basic understanding of how networks and the Internet protocol (IP) operate.

About this tutorial

When accessing a new UNIX system, or even understanding an existing one, a key part of the puzzle to how the system operates is the network configuration. There are many aspects of the network that you need to know and understand to correctly identify problems and prevent future problems. By using some basic tools and commands you can determine a lot about the configuration of a single system, and through this basic understanding, a good idea of the configuration of the rest of the network. With some additional tools, you can expand that knowledge to cover more systems and services within your network.

In this tutorial you will use some basic tools within the UNIX environment that can disclose information about the configuration of your system. By understanding these tools and the information they output, you will be able to gain a greater understanding of your system network configuration and how it works. You will also examine tools and solutions that can look at the wider network and gain more detailed information about your network, its potential security issues, and key points of information that will help you identify and diagnose problems when they do occur.

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