Program overview

EtherPeek NX™

> ## Program overview

> EtherPeek NX is built around two distinct ways of looking at the network: Monitor statistics and packet capture. The next sections introduce these two approaches. Monitor statistics, Capture windows and Packet File windows provide EtherPeek NX with the foundations for fast, intuitive, and comprehensive network analysis in Ethernet environments.

> ### Monitor statistics

> The Monitor statistics function never saves packets, it only collects data. That data is always based on all the traffic found on the adapter selected in the Adapter view of the Monitor Options dialog. There can only be one instance of Monitor statistics at one time. From the Monitor menu, Monitor statistics provides the following views of network traffic:

> Node Statistics

> Protocol Statistics

> Network Statistics

> Size Statistics

> Summary Statistics

> History Statistics

> ### Capture windows and Packet File windows

> Packet capture is done in Capture windows. Packet File windowS. are used to open saved packet files. You can save packets into a new packet file from either a Capture window or a Packet File window. You can have multiple Capture windows and/or Packet File windows open at the same time, up to the limits of your system resources.

> A Packet File window has all the statistical and analytical features of a Capture window, but none of the features required for packet capture. With that exception, everything said here about Capture windows applies equally to Packet File windows.

> All the capture-related properties of a Capture window are defined in the Capture Options dialog. Each Capture window must be assigned an adapter from which to capture (in the Adapter view), and a memory allocation called a capture buffer (in the General view). You can assign each Capture window a different adapter, choose the same adapter for multiple Capture windows, or any combination of shared and unique, so long as each Capture window has one valid adapter.

> A Capture window or Packet File window provides the same types of statistics found in Monitor statistics (in the Nodes, Protocols, and Summary views), or provides near equivalents in the Graphs view. There is one crucial difference, however, between the statistics in these windows and the ones in Monitor statistics. The statistics in these windows are based only on the packets seen in the buffer of the particular Capture window or Packet File window. In a Packet File window (or in a Capture window, when capture is stopped), you can, for example, select a group of packets in the Packets view and choose Hide Selected Packets from the Edit menu to temporarily alter the apparent contents of the capture buffer. This forces a recalculation of statistics based on the remaining packets.

> All the functions related to packet decodes-viewing, saving, and searching by the decoded contents of packets-are unique to Capture windows and Packet File windows.

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