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Giveaway of the day — Colasoft Packet Player Pro 1.3.1
Colasoft Packet Player Pro 1.3.1 was available as a giveaway on August 8, 2016!
Colasoft Packet Player Pro is a packet file player tool that enables you to open a captured packet trace file and send its content over a specified network connection. Colasoft Packet Player supports many packet trace file formats created by sniffer software such as Colasoft Capsa, Ethereal, Network General Sniffer or WildPackets EtherPeek/OmniPeek.
System Requirements:
Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista/ 7/ 8/ 10
Publisher:
ColasoftHomepage:
http://www.colasoft.com/purchase/tools.phpFile Size:
19.8 MB
Price:
$395.00
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Comments on Colasoft Packet Player Pro 1.3.1
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I have no requirement for this, but it's great to see rarefied needs being addressed. As you can see by the regular price, specialized programs tend to be very pricey. And from a leader in the field no less. Thank you Colasoft for thinking of us.
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When you set up a home network it's normally no big deal -- just plug everything in, configure the router, set passwords etc. & you're good to go. When you set up a larger biz network however the network traffic can be kind of like the traffic on the highway, with bottle necks & traffic jams. A network tech or engineer works to make sure those slowdowns don't happen.
From some quick research, one way they test a network is to generate traffic to simulate what will happen when that network is put into actual use -- it's part of some certifications. And the Colasoft Packet Player is one of the tools that they can use to generate that traffic.
I'm sure there are other uses, but that's the best example I came across. FWIW doing that very quick research, Colasoft was very frequently mentioned.
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If you can succeed to replay those captured packets, you are in luck, because I have tried it before and crashed the whole network by re-sending itself over and over until the memory crashed due to memory overflow.
Second, there is no need to replay those packets if it happen they to be rogue, you may destroy your network and the headache to restore it back is tremendous.
In my opinion, there is no need for this software in you computer , even if it is free.
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Peter,
You are correct that rapid, repeated replays of even benign packets can wreak havoc, saturating the network, overloading routers, switches, and end-user nodes. This particular packet replay app allows you to set the replay to a single playback or repeat it for a set number of cycles, and you can set the desired time delay between replays to avoid problems.
Still, if you aren't certain the packets you have captured are safe, it is best to run the replay in a test network that is isolated from your production environment whenever possible.
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Luckystiff, thanks for the explanation. but who has time to build test network and the same packets behave differently in different network. One extra router or switch can block some pockets thinking they are in error. I have ran similar software in the past and one or two re-plays can not test the network in depth. Re-laying unknown packets are dangerous in any network.
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Maria,
Peter didn't specify what packets he had captured, or why he replayed them. I wasn't sure if he was trying to isolate a problem caused by packets he had captured, or if he was using packets he knew were safe, but the replay loop function caused trouble, or what else might have been going on, so I could only respond with generalities.
And my response to Peter seems to agrees with your post: DO NOT replay a captured packet stream unless you know how to do it safely. Which to me means that you either know the stream's contents, or you are testing the potentially harmful stream in a separate (test) network or network simulation.
As for the test network, yes - setting up and maintaining a separate test network takes time, and many IT managers don't realize the value gained by spending that time. I know I was lucky to have an IT director that understood that recovering from a catastrophic network failure due to lack of testing would take far longer, and cost way more than the time and expense of the test network, so he made a separate test environment a priority. We also tested our standard system images in that test environment to check for all kinds of integration problems before we pushed out updates.
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Forgive my ignorance, but just what is it for?
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Any one care to give a deeper explanation of the purpose and use of today's download
Thank You
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Maybe someone could explain what this is for? Sounds like a media capture program.
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Therese, This particular tool doesn't capture data, it plays back packet files that were previously captured by Capsa, Wireshark, or several other packet capture utilities, so you can analyze network activity related to those packets.
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what is the difference between the freeware version and paid?
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michael00000001,
I am curious about this myself, but I can't seem to find any reference to "Packet Player Pro"on Colasoft's site? Their site does offer a free version of Packet Player - v2.0 - which is around 12.8MB in size, dated June 2016, compared to today's 19.7MB v1.3.1 "Commercial" version, whose installed .exe is dated Oct, 2014.
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- I forgot to mention that on Colasoft's site, the free Packet Player v2.0 info page links to the v1.3.1 help file, so I assume the two versions are very similar
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TK, I haven't installed the free version, so thanks for the info on the differences. Good catch on the 'elevated rights' requirement. Since the free v2.x page still points to the older v1.3.1 help file, I doubt that's covered there.
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TK, Thanks. I did see that particular link, so I guess I should have said I didn't find any reference to what features/functions the Pro version provides. I even tried searching their support forum for that info, but couldn't do a simple search without the hassle of registering, etc.
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