The Network dashboard´ is a portable, all-in-one network monitoring tool designed for power users, sysadmins, and hardware hackers who need a "God-view" of their local Home network. Unlike standard command-line tools, this dashboard provides a persistent, visual map of your LAN topology, tracking devices even as they move between IP addresses.

Built using PySide6 and Scapy, the tool is designed for portability across Linux, macOS, and Windows. It utilizes a multi-threaded architecture to ensure the UI remains fluid while performing intensive network operations like deep-packet ARP scanning, service probing, and WAN throughput testing.

Core Functionality & Breakdown

1. Intelligent Device Discovery & Inventory

  • ARP-based Scanning: Uses Scapy to perform low-level ARP broadcasts to map every device on the subnet, bypassing most firewall restrictions that block standard pings.
  • Persistent Database: Integrates a local SQLite database to store device history (MAC, IP, vendor, and OS) so that devices are remembered across sessions.
  • OUI Vendor Lookup: Automatically identifies hardware manufacturers (e.g., Apple, Raspberry Pi, Espressif) using a built-in MAC address parser and API fallbacks.

2. Real-Time Health & Performance Monitoring

  • Latency Sparklines: Every device card features a live sparkline widget showing historical ping latency, allowing you to spot "jittery" devices at a glance.
  • WAN Throughput Testing: A custom speedtest worker measures real-world internet speeds directly against Cloudflare’s infrastructure, providing 90th-percentile accuracy for download and upload speeds.
  • Bandwidth Tracking: Monitors local machine network I/O in real-time using psutil, displaying live throughput pulses.

3. Network Security & Awareness

  • Port Probing: Automatically scans for common services (SSH, HTTP, TLS, MQTT, Plex, etc.) and badges each device with its active services.
  • ARP Watch: Actively monitors for MAC-to-IP changes and logs alerts if a hardware address suddenly changes its IP, a critical feature for detecting network spoofing or DHCP conflicts.
  • OS Fingerprinting: Uses TTL-based guessing and optional Nmap integration to determine if a device is running Linux, Windows, or is a dedicated network appliance.

4. User-Centric Design

  • NOC Aesthetic: A custom-themed dark UI with animated "Status Rings" and a grid-based layout for easy monitoring of large networks.
  • Custom Nicknames: Users can assign permanent nicknames to MAC addresses, ensuring that even if a device’s IP changes, its user-defined label remains.
  • Portable Execution: Written in Python with minimal dependencies, making it easy to run as a standalone tool across different operating systems.

Technical Specifications

  • Language: Python 3.x
  • GUI Framework: PySide6 (Qt)
  • Network Engine: Scapy, Socket, psutil
  • Data Storage: SQLite3
  • OS Support: Windows, macOS, Linux (requires root/sudo for ARP functions)