Modern educational institutions provide Internet access in order to empower students with web-based resources. These institutions typically use network tools for terminal monitoring, power management, and access control.

This paper describes an open-source solution for lab terminal management that uses the Internet control message protocol (ICMP), the address resolution protocol (ARP), and both penetration testing and network map protocols to learn the network topology. The database stores the gathered network addresses and other information, which not only serves the Extensible Markup Language (XML) for the graphical user interface (GUI) rendering the topology map, but also facilitates analysis. The paper compares the features of the adaptive network tools services topology mapper (ANTS) with other popular freeware and licensed software, including SolarWinds, Intermapper, Dia, eDraw, Lucidchart, and LanFlow.

This paper introduces the problem domain and explains the various components of the ANTS system in detail. The authors then describe the system’s design methodology, algorithms, and protocols, and present the results and analysis of a test of ANTS user acceptance and system performance; 37 different individuals, including a network administrator, students, and staff, tested these features. The paper uses simple, easy-to-follow language and avoids the overuse of networking jargon, making it useful even for novice network administrators.

The ANTS system presented in this paper can simplify lab terminal management for small educational institutions by offering many of the same features of popular licensed software at no cost. The paper is intended for those evaluating lab network and terminal management software, especially at institutions that are running on a limited budget.