The K Desktop Environment
NextPreviousTable of Contents

 

3. General Description

KSnuffle is a network traffic monitor, which can monitor, display, log and replay information about traffic passing through or by a network interface.

It comprises two main components:

In addition to the display pages for the above, there are three extra display pages:

The sniffer and replay components each have five display screens:

These may be augmented by plugins.


An important point to note about the configuration screen is the use of the Set, Clear, Reset and Go buttons.

The configuration maintains a state which is the values of the various control fields at the time that the Set button was last pressed. Hence, further changes to the control fields have no affect[*] until Set is pressed once more. The Clear button clears most control fields to a default state, but does not affect[*] the underlying state; the Reset restores the control fields to the underlying state (ie., the values the last time Set was pressed).

In a sniffer, when Set is pressed, the packet filter and trigger programs are verified (and an error will be reported if it is invalid). Provided that there are no errors, the Go button is then enabled, however execution of the sniffer or replayer is not started until the Go button is pressed.

[*] Note that no control has any impact on anything. An impact is a physical event, and is not synonymous with the verb effect, nor with affect. This use of the word impact is a consequence of letting a bunch of illiterates from the US-of-A loose on the English language.

Next Previous Table of Contents