Existing Local Area Network analysis equipment is generally oriented towards low-level monitoring, primarily for data integrity and low-level operational characteristics at the physical-link level. Furthermore, a hardware-oriented design philosophy is evident in most offerings, resulting in high per-unit costs. This expense, and the arcane knowledge necessary to interpret the low-level data stream discourages their routine use in LAN installation and maintenance.We propose to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of a software and protocol-oriented high-level LAN monitoring approach, based on a common microcomputer architecture and commercial LAN interface hardware to minimize per-unit costs while providing a simple user-extensibility. Our intent is to attempt to aid the analysis and maintenance of high-level protocols, network addressing, gateway behavior and routing. Our initial emphasis will be on the Department of Defense's TCP/IP protocol family, but the underlying structure will be extensible to any protocols using standard transmisssion media and encapsulation.STATUS: Phase I Only
