The following portion of this document is a summary of what I have learned about Network Analysis Tools and Network Protocols. It also details the books that I found useful in my survey of network analysis tools. There are basically two types of Network Analysis Tools. There are software tools, most of which run on UNIX, and there are hardware tools which usually rely on specialized network cards and custom operating environments. The software tools are perhaps the ones that I am most interested in due to my interest in computer science.
Several tools exist for monitoring networks.
Most of these tools are what are known as packet grabbers. Every computer on the ethernet hears every packet that is transmitted. Most computers simply discard the packets that are not intended for them. Packet grabbers on the other hand cause the computer to store or at least examine every packet that comes across the ethernet. An example of this type of tool is tcpdump which can be found on most berkely UNIX variants.