Project Status

The forum for help and support with FreeNATS as well as any useful hints and tips
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Heathy65
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Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:45 pm

Project Status

Post by Heathy65 » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:48 pm

Hi,
I've been looking at FreeNATS and it seems very good/useful however I'm wondering what the current development status of this project is.
I've seen some support help/feedback on this forum but have noticed that the latest version of the code is seemingly a few years old.
Cheers Ian

dave
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Joined: Fri May 30, 2008 9:09 pm
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Re: Project Status

Post by dave » Mon Sep 01, 2014 4:15 pm

Hi Ian,

Good question! I think snoozing might be the best way to describe it.

As far as I'm concerned it's still a current and supported project - so I do issue bugfixes as they crop up or requests for change.

User supplied/generated new test types either posted in the forum or available as extras also add to the functionality.

However it's sort of reached a plateau. For what I need, and seemingly the stalwart users, it fits nicely. A (long time now) while back I started looking at the possibilities of putting in SNMP support but that would have required quite major re-engineering. It was also my opinion that other tools, more complex that FreeNATS, do that kind of monitoring probably better than FreeNATS would - it has a niche as a very easy to setup system that is also highly flexible (write your own tests/events etc).

I've also harboured the dream of doing a ground-up rewrite as the code has grown in my spare time in a way that, as a software engineer, I cringe at and would not be happy with at work.

Was there anything specific you were looking for in active development?

Regards,

Dave.

Heathy65
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:45 pm

Re: Project Status

Post by Heathy65 » Mon Sep 01, 2014 6:17 pm

Hi Dave,

Firstly thanks for the prompt reply, it's good to hear that it's "current and supported".

I'm a self confessed techie and have been looking for some thing just like this to monitor my home network. TBH, I haven't had a good look at FreeNATS yet, I initially found fing which seems to be good also (but quite expensive for home use).

Now I know this product is still alive and kicking I'm going to dust-down one of my Raspberry Pi's and have a play with it (so no specific enhancements that I can think of at the moment).

Thanks again,

Cheers Ian

dave
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Posts: 260
Joined: Fri May 30, 2008 9:09 pm
Location: UK
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Re: Project Status

Post by dave » Tue Sep 02, 2014 8:21 pm

Hi,

Ok - good luck. Hope it is what you're after.

I put it on a Pi back in 2012 using the stock Debian (I think) SD install that came with it: http://www.purplepixie.org/freenats/wiki/NATS_Pi_Recipe

Certainly ran ok performance-wise.

Regards,

Dave.

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