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what are your favorite network troubleshooting tools?

I thought I'd add a little data to my first response: To watch the network in real time with syslog, which puts messages in /var/log/router.log: tail -f /var/log/router.log | egrep -vi 'terms|I|do|not|want|to|see|SyncConfigOK|SaveConfigSucceeded|LogFile|etcetera|etcetera' To look for a problems on router1: grep -i router1 /var/log/router.log | egrep -vi 'terms|I|do|not|want|to|see' | less scott ps. it's free. no cost. low learning curve. easy and fast.