Ostinato

Ostinato is a cool open-source tool that works on different platforms. It's made for network packet and traffic generation, which is super helpful for system admins and security fans.

Key Features of Ostinato

This software supports a bunch of standard protocols, including Ethernet, VLAN (with Q-in-Q), IPv4, and IPv6. You can also work with various text-based protocols like HTTP and SIP. It’s pretty flexible!

Easy to Use

You can easily change any field in any protocol and stack them in any order you want. Plus, you can write your own scripts to add support for protocols that aren’t included yet! Want to create multiple streams or set burst rates? No problem!

Packet Capture and Analysis

Ostinato lets you capture network packets too! You can analyze them using Wireshark, which is awesome for checking what’s going on in your network.

Cross-Platform Compatibility

This app is designed with cross-platform use in mind. It’s coded in C++ and uses the Qt GUI toolkit, so it works well on GNU/Linux, BSD, Windows, and Mac OS X.

Supported Linux Distributions

You’ll find it supports a ton of Linux distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, openSUSE, and SUSE Enterprise Linux. There are binary packages available for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. If you're more into coding yourself, there's also a source archive you can download.

A Companion to Wireshark

All in all, Ostinato wants to be like “Wireshark in Reverse.” It’s gaining popularity as a perfect buddy for Wireshark—the most famous free network scanner out there. If you're into performance testing or just love working with networks, this app is definitely worth checking out!