A collection of useful tools which I have used to help diagnose issues, monitor issues, and to get things done!
Resources
| Website | TAGS |
| Active Directory Security https://adsecurity.org/ | #Microsoft, #AD, #Security |
| ipSpace blog https://blog.ipspace.net/ The blog of network engineer Ivan Pepelnjak (CCIE#1354 Emeritus). Content is mostly Cisco-centric, with some content on other vendors. | #Cisco, #Networking, |
| Microsoft 365 status (twitter) https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status | #Microsoft, #Office365, #Microsoft365 |
| Stack Exchange https://stackexchange.com/ A Q&A site where people share their knowledge on nearly every IT subject imaginable. (Mostly used by IT professionals) | |
| Windows release health https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/ Windows Update known issues | #Microsoft, #Windows, #WindowsUpdate |
System utilities
| Windows | Linux | |
|---|---|---|
| Cobian Backup 11 Free backup software. https://www.cobiansoft.com/ | Y | – |
| Microsoft Sysinternals A suite of tools for monitoring processes in real-time (registry reads/writes, TCP/IP port usage, etc), dumping memory of processes, removing NTFS ADS data, controlling startup services, and much more! This suite of tools was developed by Mark Russinovich, and later acquired by Microsoft. I find these tools to be essential for administering Microsoft Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sysinternals-suite | Y | – |
| NoVirusThanks Win Update Stop v1.4 Safely stop the Windows Update service from running. Supports: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 (32-bit & 64-bit). https://web.archive.org/web/20191010084156/https://www.novirusthanks.org/products/win-update-stop/ | Y | – |
Disk utilities
| Windows | Linux | |
|---|---|---|
| CrystalDiskInfo Hard drive diagnostic program. https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/ | Y | – |
| GSmartControl Hard drive diagnostic program. Shows information such as: number of reallocated sectors, CRC error count, hard drive temperature, temperature history, power-on hours, physical shock count. https://gsmartcontrol.sourceforge.io/home/ | Y | Y |
| Linux File Systems for Windows (Paragon Software) Allows you to mount, read & write linux file systems on Windows. Supports: – Read/write: Ext2, Ext3, Ext4 – Read-only: Btrfs, XFS https://www.paragon-software.com/home/linuxfs-windows/ | Y | – |
| Macrium Reflect Free disk imaging and cloning tool; backup partitions, restore partitions; supports TRIM for SSDs. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree | Y | – |
| MiniTool Partition Wizard Allows you to create/resize/format partitions, convert disk between MBR and GPT disks, convert partitions between NTFS and FAT32, and convert dynamic disks to basic disks without data loss. https://www.partitionwizard.com/ | Y | – |
| APFS for Windows (Paragon Software) Allows you to mount, read & write Apple APFS file systems on Windows. Supports: – Read/write: APFS (Apple File System) https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/ | Y | – |
| HFS+ for Windows (Paragon Software) Allows you to mount, read & write Apple HFS file systems on Windows. Supports: – HFS Plus (Mac OS Extended) – HFSX (Mac OS Extended Case-Sensitive) https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/ | Y | – |
Network utilities
| Windows | Linux | |
|---|---|---|
| AnalogX Proxy Lightweight proxy server for Windows. Supports: – HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, NNTP, SOCKS. http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Network/proxy/Freeware.htm | Y | – |
| AnalogX PortMapper Redirect local TCP or UDP ports to other IP addresses. http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Network/pmapper/Freeware.htm | Y | – |
| EVE-NG Virtualise networking gear from popular vendors and use them to create network topologies. https://www.eve-ng.net/ | Y | Y |
| GNS3 Virtualise networking gear from popular vendors and use them to create network topologies. Supports: – Arista, Aruba, Big Cloud, BIRD, Brocade, Checkpoint, Cisco, CloudRouter, Extreme Network, F5, Fortinet, HPE, Juniper, MikroTik, Onos, OpenvSwitch, OpenWRT, OPNsense, Proxmox, Sophos, Trend Micro, Untangle. https://www.gns3.com/ | Y | Y |
| Libreswan VPN client and server for linux utilising IPsec and IKE/IKEv2. It offers interoperability with popular vendors and cloud providers: Cisco, Juniper, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud. https://libreswan.org/ | N | Y |
| Nmap Port scanner. CLI only, but there are third-party GUI interfaces for it, too. https://nmap.org/ | Y | Y |
| OpenSSH Official Microsoft repository for their ported Windows version of the BSD OpenSSH daemon. https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable | Y | – |
| Putty SSH/SCP/FTP/Telnet client. Comes as both GUI and command-line. https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html | Y | Y |
| stunnel SSL proxy server for IPv4 and IPv6. Enables non-SSL capable programs to communicate with SSL/TLS services. FIPS-compliant. Supports: – CIFS, CONNECT, IMAP, NNTP, PGSQL, POP3, PROXY, SMTP, SOCKS v4/v4a/v5 https://www.stunnel.org/ | Y | Y |
| Technitium MAC Address Changer As the name suggests, it’s a MAC address changer. Supports: – Wired, WiFi, Virtual adaptors https://technitium.com/tmac/ | Y | – |
| TFTPD32/TFTPD64 TFTP server & client for Windows, but also runs a very basic DHCP server and an even more basic SYSLOG server. https://tftpd32.jounin.net/ | Y | – |
| Wifi Analyzer Turns your android phone into a Wi-Fi analyzer. Shows the Wi-Fi channels around you, and helps you to find a less crowded channel for your Wireless Router or Wireless Access Point. Supports: – Android smartphones https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en | – | – |
| Wireshark Packet sniffer, formerly known as Ethereal. https://www.wireshark.org/ | Y | Y |
Security/Hacking tools
| Windows | Linux | |
|---|---|---|
| dnscat2 Utility to tunnel via the DNS protocol. Can also be used for data exfiltration. https://github.com/iagox86/dnscat2 | – | Y |
| icmpchat Proof of concept peer-to-peer chat program to demonstrate the use of unused fields within common Internet protocols. This program uses ICMP packets to transmit the chat. (Credit to Martin J. Muench: https://www.mushun-group.com) icmpchat-0.8.tar.gz | – | Y |
| knockknock A port knocker for linux which doesn’t use a daemon. It reads the kern.log file to monitor port knock sequences. https://github.com/moxie0/knockknock | – | Y |
| mimikatz Common hacking tool used to extract plaintexts passwords, hash, PIN code and kerberos tickets from memory. Can also be used to perform pass-the-hash (PTH) attacks, pass-the-ticket, and create Golden tickets. https://github.com/gentilkiwi/mimikatz | Y | – |
| sslstrip A tool to demonstrate that the SSL protocol which was commonly used for encrypted website communications, was insecure. https://github.com/moxie0/sslstrip | – | Y |
| WiFiPumpkin3 Tool to easily create a rogue WiFi access point and intercept communications using the ‘sslstrip’ tool. https://github.com/P0cL4bs/wifipumpkin3 | – | Y |