Cat Karat Packet Builder

Cat Karat Packet Builder is a lightweight and intuitive piece of software which aims to offer network administrators and other professionals in the field, the means to effectively test the and troubleshoot problems or their firewall configuration.

Subsequent to a brief and fairly uneventful installation, users can get started with the program right away, as it features a fairly simple and approachable graphical user interface, thus sparing them from having to resort to command line arguments in order to get the job done.

Cat Karat Packet Builder’s main window features several distinct panels, where users can list the available interfaces, streams and packet flows, as well as browse through the ‘Protocol View’.

Users have the option of either creating or opening a PCAP data packet, with just a few clicks. They can edit the packet or add bytes and lines to it, while the ‘Packet Capture Tool’ can prove handy in sending them to a target network and analyzing them when exiting.

Optionally, users can load and run automatic scripts or custom protocols. In the ‘Packet Flow’ section of Cat Karat Packet Builder, users can click on the various elements and components, so as to change the path taken by the packets, supporting both ‘IP4/IP6’ and ‘IP6/IP4’.

Moreover, users can work with ‘Fast MAC and VLAN Increment’, ‘Allow Truncated Packets’ or ‘Allow Jumbo Frames’. Once the configuration is complete, users can ‘Start Transmit’ and analyze the transfers. It should be noted that the utility significantly influences traffic, since that is its main goal.

While the GUI makes Cat Karat Packet Builder fairly approachable, it requires a substantial knowledge of network protocols in order to handle it properly, which leads towards the conclusion that the application is mainly intended for professionals who want to test and troubleshoot firewalls and network problems.