Wireshark

I use it as a systems information manager to capture traffic on the network and analyze the packets for various reasons. I have used it to find a ping scan from a wireless network that was DOS'ing an external location, and also have used it to pinpoint a system with a corrupted NIC driver that was causing a severe broadcast storm on our main network.

Wireshark is a tool used by our Network Systems and Security Teams to analyze incoming and outgoing traffic to troubleshoot Network Issues. The tool gives end-users the option to filter traffic on specific ports and protocols and provides the ability to select a specific packet and view the entire N/W stream the packet belongs to.

We/I use Wireshark to capture and to analyze both wireless and wired network traffic. It is an absolutely required tool for any system administrator or network administrator. Our entire IT department uses it. Wireshark is both free and open source software, which, for what it does, saves us a lot of money. This graphical tool is easy to use and makes network packet analysis far less painful than if we had to rely just on the command line. Using Wireshark, we can analyze network traffic for further analysis ourselves or we can capture it and send it as a pcap file to a security consultant for further investigation. It is an essential part of our administrative toolbox.

Troubleshooting of reported issues and verification of facts (i.e. that a certain protocol is being used).

We use Wireshark in a multitude of ways. First, we troubleshoot connectivity issues with it, second, we use it for Firewall ruleset tests and third we use it to monitor odd traffic patterns. We find it most helpful when setting up a new product and a vendor is blaming something on our firewall and we can then show them the logs that the traffic is getting through to their side but no response.