How to view network traffic in and out of a machine?

Question

Looking for something like wireshark - a nice UI for monitoring network traffic in and out of a development machine.

Answer 1

Yeah, Wireshark or HTTP Scoop.

With Wireshark you just need to configure the StartupItem 'ChmodBPF' which is included in the download, for it to work.

Answer 2

My preferred way of doing it is with tcpdump and then open the dumped capture file with Wireshark, because it's easier to configure and even faster.

Example:

tcpdump -s 0 -w dumpfile.pcap -vv -i en0 'host example.com and port 80'

Answer 3

Debookee will do the job for the following protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, DHCP, SIP ...

There's also a scanner included that can show you all the devices on your network.

But the best to me is the interceptor tool that allows you to see the traffic of any device (mobile, tablet, other Mac or PC) on your network, like Cain & Abel for Windows.

Answer 4

Little Snitch comes with a great network monitor overlay that tells you exactly which processes are responsible for network I/O. I downloaded the demo after noticing constant network activity on my school wifi - turned out to be mDNSresponder handling Bonjour traffic constantly, due to the huge popularity of MacBooks/iDevices at my school. I haven't sprung for the license yet, since the demo mode lets you use it for long enough to identify such anomalies.

Answer 5

For HTTP only, Charles Web Debugging Proxy will do the work (not free although).