Tools That Earn Their Place

The default SSH and serial console client for Windows. Lightweight, no install required. Save sessions for every switch and firewall in your environment, and you stop wasting time typing IPs and credentials. Still the right tool 25 years on.

Better serial console handling than PuTTY for some specific scenarios, including TFTP server functionality built in for IOS image transfers. Worth having installed alongside PuTTY rather than choosing one.

Tabbed connection manager that handles SSH, RDP, VNC, telnet, and serial in one window. When you are managing 40 switches and 12 servers, the tab interface saves real time. Open source and stable.

The packet capture and analysis tool. If you do network or physical security work and you are not comfortable in Wireshark, fix that. Camera streams, ARP storms, BPDU floods, RTSP negotiation issues, all of it shows up in a capture before it shows up anywhere else.

Network discovery and port scanning. Use it on your own networks during commissioning to verify what is actually reachable, what is listening, and what should not be. Output is parseable for documentation and audit reports.

Lighter-weight than Nmap for a quick "what is on this subnet" sweep. Useful when you are documenting an environment that nobody has documented in three years.

Windows-native alternative for fast LAN scans with hostname and MAC vendor lookup. Drops a clean list you can paste into a spreadsheet.

Path analysis with continuous latency tracking. When a customer says the network is slow at random times, leave PingPlotter running for 24 hours and you have evidence instead of opinion. Free version is enough for most diagnostics.

Throughput testing between two endpoints. Confirm a 10 Gbps link is actually delivering 10 Gbps, or that a building uplink is not the bottleneck someone thinks it is. Lives on every IT bench it should.

SCP and SFTP file transfer with a Windows Explorer interface. The standard tool for moving config files, firmware images, and logs between switches, servers, and your workstation.

Text editor that handles Cisco, Aruba, and ALE configs without choking on the file size. Syntax highlighting plugins exist for most network OSes. Always installed on a working bench.

When you outgrow Notepad++, this is where you go. Extensions for Ansible, YAML, JSON, network config templating. Cross-platform if you bounce between Windows and macOS.

Local password vault with no cloud dependency. Appropriate for the credentials you should not be storing in a SaaS password manager: device enable secrets, infrastructure root credentials, recovery accounts. Database file backs up wherever you back up other critical data.

Cross-device password manager for everyday accounts and customer credentials where shared access is required. Self-hostable if you do not want the SaaS dependency.

Stop doing subnet math on a notepad. Type in a CIDR, get the network, broadcast, range, and binary representation. Saves time, prevents mistakes during commissioning.

Screen and audio recording for documenting troubleshooting sessions, capturing camera output, or recording training material. Free, capable, and the default for anyone producing technical video.

Base configuration templates for Cisco Catalyst, Aruba CX, and ALE OmniSwitch. Generates a starting point from your VLAN scheme and management addressing. Saves the first 30 to 60 minutes of every new switch deployment.

Cryptographic helper for the small operational tasks that come up in security work: hashing comparisons, key generation, certificate inspection, and encoding conversions.

Hardening baseline generator for Windows workstations and servers in physical security environments. Produces a starting checklist tied to CIS benchmarks and the operational requirements of the platforms (Genetec, C-CURE, Milestone) that run on them.