Network Management Program?

[FattyLumpkin]

Hi. Can anyone suggest some good (preferable free) software for managing a network? I'm about to move into our new house and will have two NetGear switches and a router for all the connections but am curious about what people use to monitor and manage such a system.

Windows XP (Pro)

Thank you...

[Archer36]

What are you looking for in such a management system? For the switches you don't need anything unless its like a cisco or a high end server switch. As for the router if its one from BB or CC just use the software It came with.

May I also suggest playing around with smoothwall from smoothwall.org, it could replace your router and make a hardened firewall along with robust routing capabilities.

[FattyLumpkin]

Thanks Archer! My it that ok for Windows XP or just Linux?

[Archer36]

Well smoothwall is a ISO you download then get a computer with at least 2 Network cards, the speed of the computer can be almost anything, a 223mhz computer will run it fine. Then just plug your Cable/DSL modem into one of the NIC cards, then your switch into the other NIC card. Its based on linux but you don't need any knowledge of linux to use it.

[Antillian]

sounds cool, i'd definitely like to try that out.

[su root]

Generally, no network mangement is really needed for a network that small. As previously posted, you can try Smoothwall or another gateway/router linux OS to control your network borders, but unless you end up with something mysteriously clogging your network, then there's no need.

[FattyLumpkin]

I guess part of the interest in this is pure excitement. I have not really made a network before. I put 26 (yep, 26) Cat6 sockets around the house and 15 video sockets so I'm pretty excited and was just wanting to look at it all. We currently have 4 computers to hook up to it.

[AMD Phreak]

If you are feeling uber-adventurous, you could try setting up Nagios. It's a network monitor utility ran on linux. Its a bear to set up sometimes if you do not know what you are doing. For someone new to linux, I would HIGHLY recomend using Debian Sarge for such a venture as you can simply "apt-get install nagios text" and it will be done. No dealing with cryptic RPM's and Tar files that are difficult to locate or install. It provides a nice web based page to view the health of the network.

www.nagios.org

If needed I can assist in setup.

[su root]

Umm... Nagios for a home environment? It would be pointless... it only checks for a down/up status. It'd be better to try MRTG, which would give you utilization information, but even that is pointless for a home environment unless you are having issues and want to isolate them.

[AMD Phreak]

Hey, its a monitoring program :)

Yes MRTG would be nice too, and Cacti as well. ;)