Network-I

Version 1.4.0


Terminology:
The binary capture file created by niftap is referred to as a log file.
The formatted display created by nifpan (which takes a log file as its input), is referred to as a report file, or text file.
The traffic-measurement table produced by niftap's -r option is called a frequency file.


Installation

Note that a copy of this HTML documentation is also distributed with Network-I (in the GRYBneti package for Solaris, and niftap for Linux - see below), and once the installation stage described on this page is complete, you may prefer to switch to that so you can browse locally.

Solaris Installation Instructions

Network-I is distributed in Solaris package format. It's package name is GRYBneti, and it depends on a foundation package called GRYBbase, both of them being available on the
Downloads page.

Having uncompressed and/or untarred your downloads as necessary to obtain the raw .pkg package files, you need to install them in the required order, by entering the following commands from the Unix shell, as the root user:
    pkgadd -d GRYBbase-file GRYBbase
    pkgadd -d GRYBneti-file GRYBneti
where GRYBbase-file etc represent the .pkg files (eg. GRYBbase-1.2.0b4-sunos5.6-i86pc.pkg for the current Intel build of GRYBbase).

Answer no to any requests to install conflicting files (Solaris throws up spurious warnings about this for existing directories that are actually symbolic links), and let the installation proceed.
Interaction during the pkgadd can be avoided by adding the arguments -n -a adminfile to the pkgadd command, where adminfile is a copy of the default (/var/sadm/install/admin/default), with the following 3 changes:
instance=quit
setuid=nocheck
conflict=nochange
Installation is now complete, and Network-I is ready for use.
The package is installed under /opt/greybsoft, and contains a bin subdirectory, in which all the executables reside, and a docs subdirectory, which contains this HTML-formatted documentation.

To uninstall, run ' pkgrm GRYBbase GRYBneti ' as root.

Linux Installation Instructions

1) RPM-Based Distros

Network-I consists of two Linux packages, niftap and nifgui, which are distributed as binary RPMs, along with another foundation package called greybase. All of them are available on the
Downloads page.

Having uncompressed and/or untarred your downloads as necessary to obtain the raw .rpm RPM files, you need to install them in the required order by entering the following commands from the Unix shell, as the root user:
    rpm -iv greybase-file
    rpm -iv niftap-file
    rpm -iv nifgui-file
where greybase-file etc represent the .rpm files (eg. greybase-1.2.0b4-linux2.4-i586.rpm for the current build of greybase).
If earlier versions of any of these packages exist on your system (test for this using rpm -qi package-name), then upgrade the package using rpm -Uv rather than rpm -iv.
As always, use rpm -ql package-name (eg. rpm -ql niftap) to discover the installed pathnames.

Note that the nifgui package has been split off from the rest of Network-I, due to its relatively complex Motif dependencies.
It is built against libXm.so.2, which was provided by the openmotif and lesstif packages that were current on Linux systems with a 2.4 kernel (in fact, Lesstif is merely a Motif emulation, whereas OpenMotif is a free version of the official Motif library).
On newer systems however, libXm.so.2 is provided by the openmotif21-libs package and this is not normally installed by default even if you select Motif - that generally gives you the openmotif-libs package, at a version level of 2.2+ (which provides libXm.so.3). However, openmotif21-libs does not contain any overlap with its successor package, and so it can be safely installed on the same system, without causing any conflicts. Of course, you still need to ensure that libXm.so.2 will be on your library path.
I would therefore recommend installing openmotif21-libs, and you can obtain it using your system's standard package-management facilities such as APT or URPMI, or using sites such as rpmfind.net and rpm.pbone.net.

To uninstall, run ' rpm -e nifgui niftap greybase ' as root.

2) Debian-Based Distros

Network-I is also distributed as a set of binary Debian packages - the exact same set of packages as for RPM-based systems, except their filenames end in .deb rather than .rpm.

As before, uncompress and/or untar your downloads as necessary to obtain the raw .deb package files, and then use your preferred Debian package-management interface (such as dselect or dpkg) to install them.
For example, 'dpkg -i greybase-1.2.0b4-linux2.4-i586.deb' to install a package, and 'dpkg -r greybase' to uninstall it.


Support

This is free software, with no entitlement to support.
Having clarified that, I will probably answer questions and endeavour to investigate reported problems (if I'm around and I'm not too busy).

The support channel is support@niftap.com.

Please read the Frequently Asked Questions before reporting a problem.


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