TCP/IP Builder : a Windows Sockets test/debug tool

[40hz]

Here's a nice utility for anything you're testing (or coding!) that uses Windows sockets. Very cool tool.

Thx to the folks over at xtort.net for identifying this useful little gem.


Main link: http://www.drk.com.ar/builder.php

TCP/IP Builder 1.8

TCP/IP Builder is a Windows Socket testing tool. You will be able to create a socket manually, connect it (or listen for connections), send and receive data through it.

You may setup local IP and Port, TCP/UDP protocol, keep alive, out-of-band data, DNS Resolver, System info, on-line help, RAW Packet Detail.

Features:

    * Act as client or server.
    * Select local IP address and port.
    * Build TCP or UDP sockets.
    * Detect remote IP address and port on incoming UDP packets.
    * Send and receive normal and Out of Band data.
    * Use 'keep-alive' and 'no-delay' socket options.
    * View incoming data in Hexadecimal representation.
    * Send arbitrary bytes by writting its ASCII number.
    * ASCII parser option for writting bytes in the format 0x<nn> (i.e: 0x4F)
    * Resolve IP addresses usign DNS.
    * IP, Protocol, Port and send flags configuration is persistent now.
    * TCP/IP Builder is open source, under GNU General Public License.

Also check out these two short articles under the docs tab for further details and instructions on how to use:

http://www.drk.com.a...Protocol-Debugging-1

http://www.drk.com.a...Protocol-Debugging-2

TCP/IP High-Level Protocol Debugging

How come TCP/IP Builder idea?

When developing a TCP/IP related application, programmers usually face the lack of a proper debugging tool. Since most of the times the programmer must build both client and server applications, starting a development can be a painful task, especially if it is the first networking development. Even for an experienced programmer, having a TCP/IP debugging tool is a useful help for testing purposes.

As a programmer strongly involved in networking applications, I have faced this problem many times. Maybe too many times, therefore two months ago I decided to start developing a solution for this problem, TCP/IP Builder.

TCP/IP Builder as a debugging tool

If you have used TCP/IP Builder before reading this document, you could be asking yourself why do I call it a debugging tool. Well, it is not a debugging tool from a strict point of view. Anyway, it is used as a debugging tool 90% of the time. To be more specific I would like to say it is a 'Black Box' debugging tool, because it doesn't need internal information about the application being debugged. It will work as long as the application uses sockets to communicate with the outside world. (And as long as you know how to 'talk' with this application, of course).

 

[Stoic Joker]

Thanks, that does look useful ... might even help with what I'm working on now.