I am Compiling a List of Free/Open Source Tools for IT/Network Admin – You can Help!

Hello People,

I am compiling a list of Free & Open Source (preferably) tools available for IT/Network administrators and it will possibly be released as an eBook. There are free & open source tools available for almost every area of IT/Network administration, but I don’t find a comprehensive listing of quality tools that can help a network administrator to test, cut costs or increase productivity (yes they very well can).

I intend to categorize all the software applications into various categories and list them along with a short description of what they can/cannot do. I am also planning to include some kind of popularity rating for each (number of downloads, recommended, etc) so that people can zero-in on the right tool and not get overwhelmed by a huge list!

Personally, I know many such applications and with some research I can come up with many more. But, I’d like to involve the readers of my blog to participate in this exercise as well – It would be great if you could suggest some free/open source tool that you use (and like). Any open source tool developer/promoter can also suggest their own products for listing, even if it is not well-known. It will (possibly) be listed along with others as new tools to try.

Personally, I use Linux Mint (on my Laptop), Open Office (Office productivity) and WordPress (to power this site) and I am very much impressed by the reliability/utility of all the three. I feel that open source tools need more exposure and higher acceptance in the enterprise market – I hope my resource will enable more IT/Network administrators to try some new tools and make their network work better, while saving a lot of $$$.

If you want to suggest, please contact me using the contact form (private message) or you could use the comments section below to recommend tools publicly. Any small help will be of great use to all of us.

Thanking you,

Rajesh K
Administrator & Blogger – excITingIP.com

6 thoughts on “I am Compiling a List of Free/Open Source Tools for IT/Network Admin – You can Help!

  1. Andiy S

    here are some Opensource tools I use on my network.
    Untangle – Unified Threat Management
    ClearOS (community edition) – SMB server
    FileZilla – FTP client
    WinSCP – FTP client
    SyncBack – Back up utility
    OpenFire – IM server
    Spark – IM client

    1. Rajesh K

      Thanks for your suggestions – I was not aware of a few o/s tools mentioned by you. I’ll definitely consider including all of them in my resource list.

  2. Andiy S

    in addition, here are some open source software i’m currently testing or have tested in the past

    FreeNAS – Network Attaches Storage Appliance
    Zentyal – SMB server
    Turnkey Linux File Server – Network Attached Storage (TurnKey Linux has many, many appliances available)
    pfSense – firewall

    free non-opensource software:
    ESXi – hypervisor
    Xen Server – hypervisor
    Spiceworks – IT Help Desk, Management, Inventory & Monitoring Tools

    1. Rajesh K

      Thanks for your contribution. I will definitely consider adding the ones you mentioned 🙂

      Destination Infinity

  3. ragu

    below are the list of open source i worked
    1.Asterisk/freeswitch – Open source PBX
    2.zimbra – open source mail server
    3.zabbix – monitoring solution for networks
    4.openNAS/FreeNAS
    5.zeroshell – Router/Bridge Linux Firewall
    6.snort – open source IDS/IPS
    7.squid – open source proxy server
    8.Mysql – Open source DB
    9.okapirouter- http://okapirouter.net/
    10.Zmanda – open source backup

    1. Rajesh K

      Thanks for your suggestions – I will add them in my list.

      Destination Infinity

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