Cocoa Packet Analyzer: Network Analysis in Style

Posted by Marvin Sum on 02/11/08 in Internet, Utilities, Web

Today it’s time to dive into something that the geekier crowd will appreciate. We all know that maintaining a secure and efficient network is the pride of every geek, me included.

With that said, I want to introduce a useful utility that accomplishes just that. It’s called Cocoa Packet Analyzer, from TastyCocoaBytes.com. This app mixes form with functionality.

To start off, create a new capture file (using the default, temporary one will do) and select which networking interface to use (Ethernet, Airport, Firewire, etc.). Let it run for however long you wish and you’ll get your results after that. Yup, it’s as simple as pushing a few buttons and getting your bacon. If you have existing PCAP files (raw packet data captured by software written using libpcap), you may use Cocoa Packet Analyzer to view them too.

Cocoa Packet Analyzer Screenshot

Cocoa Packet Analyzer is also smart enough to use the incoming/outgoing TCP port to determine different protocols like HTTP, FTP, MSN Messenger, Skype, etc. In addition, you may filter the entire list to look for specific packets. The app also supports a plugin architecture, but no details have been provided as yet. Features like printing support, a whole new look, localization and scripting are being planned for the 1.0 release.

Cocoa Packet Analyzer 0.45 is available free for download; in fact, according to TastyCocoaBytes, “this software is far away from being perfect.”, so download at your own risk.

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8 Comment(s)

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Ammon Beckstrom said on

February 11th, 2008 at 7:51 am

“It may even damage your system.” That’s comforting! Sure makes me want to install it on a machine I paid so much for.

Jens Francke said on

February 11th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

I just removed the “It may even damage your system.” - CPA wont damage your system.

In fact i simply forgot about that sentence… thank for reminding me

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Bruce A said on

February 11th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Looks a bit like WireShark. Was that the inspiration?

Jens Francke said on

February 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

Not really - it just seemed logically to have the GUI that way. I am still in search for a better gui-design, same for all the icons (I am not a graphics-guy).

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Dirk said on

February 14th, 2008 at 5:59 am

Looks nice, but what are the different interfaces? Bluetooth I understand as it is in English, but which one is Airport/Wifi etc and why are these cryptic and not in English?

Also why do you have to enter your password before you capture? Is it not easier to just put a “are you sure, ok” to pop up?

But nothing wrong with a basic interface.

Best

Dirk

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jf said on

February 14th, 2008 at 6:12 am

Those names are the BSD-style names of the interfaces (en0 = ethernet 0, wifi should be another en- it depends on you mac). i may add “human readable” names in a later release. Appearing bluetooth there is a kind of bug - i dont think you will be able to capture on it.

You are asked for a password cause you need admin/root privileges to capture traffic. A normal user is not allowed to capture network traffic.

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Grady said on

April 2nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm

Will CPA ever support Wireshark plugins?

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jf said on

April 5th, 2008 at 4:03 am

re: wireshark plugins:

to be honest I dont think so. but you can write plugins using the cocoa nsbundle technology.

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juego la ruleta said on