Remote testing of your local network (was RE: [geeks] Where is everyone.)

[David L Kindred (Dave)]

>>>>> "Joshua" == Joshua D Boyd <jdboyd at cs.millersville.edu> writes:

    Joshua> I realize that geeks has slowed down quite a bit in recent
    Joshua> weeks, but darn it, it is too quite.  I'm bored.  And
    Joshua> sneezing my head off.

Okay, here's a stupid question for everyone to say "Man, what is he
thinking?":

What do you guys use for remote testing of your local network?  I like
the Sam Spade site <http://www.samspade.org> when it's working, but it's
often slow, not up, or just not feeling well.

Does anyone else know of similar resources to check on whether your own
network (hosts, DNS, routing, whatever) is is behaving itself?

I also find this useful when a user complains out not being able to
reach a remote site.  If the Sam Spade site can get to the third site
then I start looking at my stuff and my ISP, but if the second data
point shows a failure too than I just blame the original 3rd party.
Anyone else got a better way to do this?

Yes, I also will dial into my own private ISP account to test things,
but often that ends up not being as "remote" as I'd like.

Dave

-- 
David L. Kindred <mailto:d.kindred at telesciences.com>
Unix Systems & Network Administrator
Telesciences, Inc. <http://www.telesciences.com>
Support: <http://support.telesciences.com>
2000 Midlantic Drive, Suite 410, Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054
Tel: +1.856.866.1000 ext. 4184
Fax: +1.856.866.0185
Cel: +1.609.413.6205
Pgr: +1.800.689.5182
SMS: <mailto:davidlkindred at vtext.com>
---