Sniff this!

Jeff Atwood

26 Aug 2004 — 1 min read — Comments

I’ve occasionally used network sniffers in the past, but with the rise of REST, XML, SOAP and .NET Remoting in the last year, sniffing has become an essential part of my development toolkit. I’ve evaluated a bunch of network sniffers, including the excellent open-source Ethereal, but the one I keep coming back to is Etherdetect:

Etherdetect isn’t free, and it isn’t perfect, but it offers the best blend of functionality and ease of use that I’ve found. Peeking behind the scenes at network traffic has solved some tough performance and debugging problems in our .NET apps. Highly recommended.

One tip: you typically can’t sniff traffic going to localhost, at least not without some special workarounds; the loopback TCP/IP stack behaves very differently than the “normal” network paths. Also, you’ll need the latest WinPcap libraries installed, particularly if you have a hyperthreading CPU.

network sniffer rest xml soap etherdetect ethereal winpcap

Recent Posts

Helping one another at a Repair Cafe in Amsterdam

If we do not stop to help each other, what do we become?

Yesterday, I received this email as a response to You Can't Vibe Code Love. It's such a remarkable and powerful statement that I asked permission to share it here, in its entirety, with personal information redacted: Hey Jeff, Hope you and your family are doing well.

You Can't "Vibe Code" Love

About a year ago, I was offered a presentation slot at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin. I rarely take speaking engagements, especially international ones, but this one arrived at just the right time, the right place, and with the right person – I said yes, on the contingency that Ben

An interactive TWiT Series You're the hero of the story! Choose from 1,024 possible endings. OFF by ONE with Jeff Atwood Hosted by Leo Laporte "every choice changes everything!"

Every Choice Changes Everything: The Show

About 3 weeks ago, Leo Laporte and I recorded the first episode of what will be a new monthly show on the TWiT network. Naming things is hard, and we almost voted on the name, like we did for Stack Overflow, but we quickly landed on Off By One with

Thank You For Being a Friend

It's been one of those months, and by that, I mean one of the 663 months since I was born. This won't be a long post, because I only have two things to say. First, I'm really glad we re-ordered the GMI (Guaranteed

I’m feeling unlucky... 🎲 See All Posts