Spike Send it.

Apple's OS X comes bundled with a network utility suite called - get ready - Network Utility. It's been moved from /Applications/Utilities and buried inside /System/Library.

Network Utility is just a wrapper for command line Unix tools you already own - you know, stuff the script kiddies play with. It pipes control through to the command line.

It's the same today it was twenty years ago. Not too Swift.



Spike is another network utility. It's named after the famous 007 Goldeneye scene where Izabella Scorupco tries to nail Alan Cumming's grid so the sparks start flying. Spike runs its own native code. It's faster, prettier, and easier to use.

Block

Scan an IP range to see who's in the neighbourhood. Ping them to see who's at home. The Apple '17' list found here was assembled by Spike. Scan as much as an entire B block with 16777216 IPs all at once.

Click 'Copy' and fetch it from your clipboard, all neatly formatted.

DNS

Find canonical names, aliases, addresses. Find machines on your local network.

Get

'Get' a web page. Normally port 80, but you choose the one you want (443 for HTTPS). Get the actual source with all the headers intact. Spoof any user agent you want. There are several dozen agents to choose from. Or you add your own. Set the accepted data types, cookies, 'referer'.

Head

Get headers only. Get the server, the OS, the cookies, the session IDs, the last modified date/time.

Ping

Probe a server. Set the number of packets ('#') to zero to start a flood.

Scan

Find out which TCP ports are open and what protocols they're listening for.

Trace

Discover the path to your target. Find bottlenecks, misconfigured routers.

Whois

Find out who's behind the domains and who runs them. Comes with over 100 Whois server suggestions. Or add your own.

See Also
Learning Curve: Spiking the Network