This software is a clone of etherman, interman, and tcpman that is based on GNOME/pcap technology. It allows users to monitor and analyze network traffic.
There are several key features of the EtherApe software that are worth discussing. First, network traffic is displayed graphically, and the more "talkative" a node is, the bigger its representation. Node and link color indicate the most used protocol. Second, you can select what level of the protocol stack to concentrate on, whether you want to look at traffic within your network, end to end IP, or even port to port TCP. Additionally, this software can capture live data "off the wire" from a live network connection or read data from a tcpdump capture file. Live data can also be read from ethernet, FDDI, PPP, and SLIP interfaces.
Regarding the types of frames and packets supported, EtherApe currently supports a long list of them, including ETH_II, 802.2, 803.3, IP, IPv6, ARP, X25L3, REVARP, ATALK, AARP, IPX, VINES, TRAIN, LOOP, VLAN, ICMP, IGMP, GGP, IPIP, TCP, EGP, PUP, UDP, IDP, TP, IPV6, ROUTING, RSVP, GRE, ESP, AH, ICMPV6, EON, VINES, EIGRP, OSPF, ENCAP, PIM, IPCOMP, VRRP, and most TCP and UDP services, such as TELNET, FTP, HTTP, POP3, NNTP, NETBIOS, IRC, DOMAIN, SNMP, etc.
Data display can be refined using a network filter and display averaging and node persistence times are fully configurable. Name resolution is done using standard libc functions, thus supporting DNS, hosts file, etc.
However, users need to meet certain requirements to use EtherApe software, including having the libpcap packet capture library (available from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), GTK+ Version 2 or above, Libglade 2, and Gnome Version 2.0 or above. The standard resolver library is also needed, although the exact name varies with the operating system and distribution used.
Overall, EtherApe is a reliable software that provides an intuitive visual representation of network activity and is suitable for users seeking a detailed understanding of their network.
Version 0.9.8: N/A