We have put out several new releases in October, November and December. Let's start with the Managed Switch Port Mapping Tool. We released 1.99.6, 1.99.7, 1.99.8 and we are now on v1.99.9. These new versions address issues recently found during our work on v2.0 and we added some new minor features.
We also released ipPulse v1.81 and v1.82 in that same timeframe. The most important changes were in the secure email sending section of the program.
NetScanTools Pro was also updated with a minor release 11.11 back in October. There will be one more release of it before the end of the year.
The new IPv6ScopeFinder program was also released back in October. It's free so try it out if you use IPv6.
-Kirk
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
IPv6ScopeFinder
What? It's a new freeware tool designed to quickly help you locate the right Scope ID to use when trying to send packets to a neighboring link local IPv6 address. For instance, you could use it to find the ScopeID when you needed to use command line ping to find out if IPv6 is working on the workstation across the room. I'm talking about the part of the link local address after the percent sign: fe80:11:22:33%6, where '6' is the Scope ID of the network interface on your machine that connects to the network that routes packets to the machine with the IPv6 address fe80:11:22:33.
Read about it and download it here.
Read about it and download it here.
Friday, October 7, 2011
IsThreadDesktopComposited prevents program startup
Problem: a NetScanTools Pro v11.10 user emailed with a strange problem. He could not get NetScanTools Pro to start on Windows XP sp3, instead he would get this message: "Entry Point Not Found. The procedure entry point IsThreadDesktopComposited could not be located in the dynamic link library USER32.DLL."
The first thing I did was use Dependency Walker to see if our program called that entry point in user32.dll. It did not. So I searched online and found the answer.
Apparently some misguided installers are putting a Vista file called dwmapi.dll into the Windows XP Windows\System32 directory. Some programs like NetScanTools Pro v11 are affected by this and give the IsThreadDesktopComposited error. Some people have noticed this happening after a Windows Live Messenger or Mail upgrade but I have not independently confirmed this.
Solution:
1. locate dwmapi.dll in the windows\system32 directory
2. rename or remove it
3. reboot to be sure it's unloaded from memory
The first thing I did was use Dependency Walker to see if our program called that entry point in user32.dll. It did not. So I searched online and found the answer.
Apparently some misguided installers are putting a Vista file called dwmapi.dll into the Windows XP Windows\System32 directory. Some programs like NetScanTools Pro v11 are affected by this and give the IsThreadDesktopComposited error. Some people have noticed this happening after a Windows Live Messenger or Mail upgrade but I have not independently confirmed this.
Solution:
1. locate dwmapi.dll in the windows\system32 directory
2. rename or remove it
3. reboot to be sure it's unloaded from memory
Friday, September 16, 2011
IPv6 on Windows XP
Back on June 21 I posted about IPv6 teredo interface not working on Windows 7 and how to correct this using commmand prompt netsh commands.
Just in case anyone is having the same problem on Windows XP, here is the solution for it. The problem is the same, the commands are slightly different.
Command for showing the teredo interface state:
netsh interface ipv6 show teredo
If it says the state is offline with error of none, try this:
netsh interface ipv6 set teredo enterpriseclient
That should do it. The IPv6 network components were incorrectly thinking your computer was in an enterprise situation.
Just in case anyone is having the same problem on Windows XP, here is the solution for it. The problem is the same, the commands are slightly different.
Command for showing the teredo interface state:
netsh interface ipv6 show teredo
If it says the state is offline with error of none, try this:
netsh interface ipv6 set teredo enterpriseclient
That should do it. The IPv6 network components were incorrectly thinking your computer was in an enterprise situation.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Looking for a Packet Flooder?
Check out the video on youtube after you read this post.
We have noticed that many people looking at our Packet Generator got there because they were looking for a 'Traffic Generator' or a 'Packet Flooder' - but found that the Packet Generator is really not capable of filling an interface up to the bandwidth they want. They now have their wish. And it works with IPv4 or IPv6.
NetScanTools Pro v11.10 (not released yet) has a new tool called 'Packet Flooder'. It can generate UDP packets at a very fast rate using multithreading. The packet payload can be either random numbers or alphabetical 'abcdefg' etc. The payload length can be random or fixed. The target port can be random or fixed.
Another new thing you may notice is the bandwidth gauge and historical chart. You are going to see more of these in future versions. The gauge shows the real time bandwidth utilization and the historical chart shows it over time.
Enjoy!
We have noticed that many people looking at our Packet Generator got there because they were looking for a 'Traffic Generator' or a 'Packet Flooder' - but found that the Packet Generator is really not capable of filling an interface up to the bandwidth they want. They now have their wish. And it works with IPv4 or IPv6.
NetScanTools Pro v11.10 (not released yet) has a new tool called 'Packet Flooder'. It can generate UDP packets at a very fast rate using multithreading. The packet payload can be either random numbers or alphabetical 'abcdefg' etc. The payload length can be random or fixed. The target port can be random or fixed.
Another new thing you may notice is the bandwidth gauge and historical chart. You are going to see more of these in future versions. The gauge shows the real time bandwidth utilization and the historical chart shows it over time.
Enjoy!
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Labor Day Sale
This weekend and through Tuesday Sept 6, 2011 we are having a Labor Day Sale. The biggest discount is NetScanTools LE - 62% off. So instead of $129, it's now $49 this weekend only. We also have a 25% discount on NetScanTools Pro installed or USB, the Managed Switch Port Mapping Tool, ipPulse and the Pro/Switch Port Mapper bundle.
Drop by http://www.netscantools.com/labordaysale.html and check out the savings.
Have a great holiday weekend!
Drop by http://www.netscantools.com/labordaysale.html and check out the savings.
Have a great holiday weekend!
Friday, September 2, 2011
IPv6 Link Local Addressing
As I've been working to adding IPv6 capabilities to NetScanTools Pro. As I have worked with link local addressing I have learn some interesting things. In the IPv4 world if you want to ping an address or connect to a computer on your local network, the software can easily find out the best interface (if you have more than one) to send packets out of to the other computer - all you had to do was supply the IP address. It does this using routing tables and ARP.
In IPv6, it's not quite so easy. In Windows or any other OS, you will often have two or more interfaces capable of talking IPv6. Since all link local addresses begin with FE80:, there is no method for saying this one address is on this segment and this one is on that segment like there is in IPv4 (by using IP address and subnet mask).
Essentially you have to tell the software you are using which interface to use to get to the link local address. If you have one interface to your switch and all the other devices are on the same VLAN, then it's pretty easy. You do this by appending a %# where # is the IPv6 interface number in Windows - also called the Scope ID. In unix derived operating systems like Ubuntu or OS X Lion, you would use %eth0 for the main interface.
How do you know which interface to use? That's where you have to know your network. In my case, this particular XP machine assigns '6' as the Scope ID - you can see this using ipconfig /all. It could be any number, but it's usually a single digit. So to ping an IPv6 address you would enter smoething lik "ping -6 FE80::3CC0:1%6" on the command line (no quotes). Or if you were using NetScanTools Pro v11 Ping Enhanced you would enter FE80::3CC0:1%6 as the target. If you leave off the %6 or change it to another number the software will not know which interface to send the packets out of. In NetScanTools Pro, you will see an error message. The command line ping will tell you the net is unreachable if you use the wrong Scope ID.
Just a few things I've learned about IPv6 link local addressing.
In IPv6, it's not quite so easy. In Windows or any other OS, you will often have two or more interfaces capable of talking IPv6. Since all link local addresses begin with FE80:, there is no method for saying this one address is on this segment and this one is on that segment like there is in IPv4 (by using IP address and subnet mask).
Essentially you have to tell the software you are using which interface to use to get to the link local address. If you have one interface to your switch and all the other devices are on the same VLAN, then it's pretty easy. You do this by appending a %# where # is the IPv6 interface number in Windows - also called the Scope ID. In unix derived operating systems like Ubuntu or OS X Lion, you would use %eth0 for the main interface.
How do you know which interface to use? That's where you have to know your network. In my case, this particular XP machine assigns '6' as the Scope ID - you can see this using ipconfig /all. It could be any number, but it's usually a single digit. So to ping an IPv6 address you would enter smoething lik "ping -6 FE80::3CC0:1%6" on the command line (no quotes). Or if you were using NetScanTools Pro v11 Ping Enhanced you would enter FE80::3CC0:1%6 as the target. If you leave off the %6 or change it to another number the software will not know which interface to send the packets out of. In NetScanTools Pro, you will see an error message. The command line ping will tell you the net is unreachable if you use the wrong Scope ID.
Just a few things I've learned about IPv6 link local addressing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)