Packet Generator Tool Description - Last Review: August 12, 2009

The purpose of this tool is to create a packet or set of packets to send to a target, then observe the target's response with a packet capturing tool like Packet Viewer or view the results of those packet attacks in the log files on the target. It can also be used to help determine where specific packet types are being lost between machines. This tool works best with wired ethernet interfaces.

VIDEO >> See it in action!

• Watch a demonstration of NetScanTools Pro Packet Generator sending TCP packets.
• Watch a demonstration of NetScanTools Pro Packet Generator sending UDP packets.

How fast is it? The time between a each packet in burst of identical packets can be as low as 50 microseconds (20 Khz repetition rate for identical packets). Setup time for the first packet is dependent on ARP response time of the target or gateway.

• This is not a packet flooding tool. Burst rate is about 20Khz and this may vary from computer to computer.
• This is not a bandwidth testing tool. You are looking for a piece of dedicated hardware: Agilent Technologies and Fluke both make these type of devices.
• This is not a traffic generator capable of stressing a network interface.
• This tool does not do handshaking of TCP connections and the packet size is limited to the MTU of your network, typically 1460 bytes for ethernet.
• Do not use this tool if you have an active virtual machine ethernet interface. This tool works best with physical ethernet interfaces.
• This tool cannot send custom packets through WAN (PPP/SLIP) interfaces like modems or wireless cellular modems.

Scripted packet transmission can be used to send packets with parameters changing according to your script.

Detailed pages showing more information about each of the packet types.

• Creating a TCP packet.
• Creating a UDP packet.
• Creating an ICMP packet.
• Creating a CDP packet.

Windows Vista compatibility: Fully functional as of v10.50.

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