Any utilities to track what is being transmitted over your connection?

[Old and In the Way]

I've noticed that the little internet connection icon in the system tray is turned on completetly, in both directions.....it hasn't turned off for at least a half hour.

There's nothing showing in Task Manager, system idele is using 95-99% of the processor and nothing else seems to be causing this. I have no way of knowing what application might be communicating with the net....maybe it';s a MS application, but I can't tell.

Is there any utility that analyzes the traffic and pegs it to a specific application?

[Omphaloskepsis]

1. I would start with ZoneAlarm...

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en&lid=dbtopnav_zass


That should alert you to what wants a internet connection. Run it and it will give you a alert of what process is trying to get to the internet.

Zone Alarm is a Firewall:
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Afirewall

Just so you know what you are installing..


I'm sure a better tool exist.. I just don't know what it would be on Windows.

[Berserker]

2. When you first set up

your firewall it gives you and option for allowing or not allowing a program to access the internet or when you install new programs. Look in your firewall log and it should tell you what has permission and what program don't. If you have your firewall already set to your specifications you may have some bad spyware on your machine.

[Old and In the Way]

3. OK, problem solved...I had a filesharing program running.

Interesting that it didn't show active in the task manager, but once I exited the communication stopped. I do have ZA, which does flag new processes trying to access the 'net. Of course, if I set the permission level to accept, then I don't see any flags after that.

I was wondering if there was a utility that shows realtime what programs are communicating (sending/receiving) information and which port it may be using. Seems like someone would have developed such a program for the computer illiterate, such as myself.

[RoyGBiv]

4. Try this ...

http://majorgeeks.com/Active_Ports_d682.html

I haven't used this, but from the description, it seems to do what you want.

I had a program that did exactly this when I was running Windoze, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. The description of this sounds like the description of the program I was using, so maybe it's worth a shot.

[Old and In the Way]

5. That's what I was looking for....

nifty little utility.....it's like the processes window in Task Manager, but includes the IP addys and ports that the applications are using.

Thanks.

[ConsAreLiars]

6. You might also take a look at WhatsRunning

Shows just about everything in a well organized manner, including port activity and the programs involved, and there is a lot of info on the associated website about what the various things mean. Free for personal use.

http://www.whatsrunning.net

[Old and In the Way]

7. Thanks....looks really well developed.

[many a good man]

8. Read what's in transmitted packets

http://www.ethereal.com/

[Rich Hunt]

9. Wow, another thanks!

I was WONDERING how this was done!