Security
Hello,
My network contains about 20 computers all connected through a switch.
Is there any way to sniff traffic on any given computer without actually installing a sniffer on them?
by joseph moore
Since you have a switch, you can enable a port on it to be a "span port." A span port does NOT route traffic to/from it, so you can't plug a normal system into a span port and expect it to be able to browse the network. Instead, it is in listen mode, where the packets from all other ports pass by it.
So, you set up a span port, then you plug in a computer that has the sniffer software installed on it. The span port will let the sniffer software be able to "sniff" the packets that are traveling on the rest of the switch!
This is the preferred way of doing this.
YOu will have to read on your switch's documentation on how to set up a span port. Then, set up a single computer with the sniffer. Plug it into the span port, and start the sniffer!
hope this helps
by gyroscope
Though this did not help my specific case I'll give you the points because I was unaware of a span port. My specific switch does not have a span port (that I could find anyway). It is a 3com superstack II.
What I did find was a program called ettercap (among others) which will let me do this. Here is the link to the article that helped me.
http://www.sans.org/rr/threats/address.php
Thanks for the help.
by gyroscope
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