Network Observer

A local network observability tool written in Rust. It captures packets, discovers hosts via ARP, detects peers via mDNS, and exposes live network state through an HTTPS/WSS API and React dashboard.

Get Started

Start the backend and dashboard in two terminals:

INTERFACE=en0 PORT=3000 DEVICE_NAME=local cargo run

cd gui
npm install
npm run dev

Open the dashboard at http://localhost:5173. The backend listens on https://localhost:3000; because it uses a local self-signed certificate, your browser may ask you to trust it once. Set INTERFACE to your network interface (en0 on many macOS machines, eth0 on many Linux machines).

Why this project exists

This project explores system-level Rust, packet capture, async services, local-network discovery, and runtime visibility for edge-style systems.

Features

• TCP/UDP and ARP packet capture via pcap
• ARP-based host discovery
• Session aggregation by IP/port pair
• mDNS peer discovery
• Peer-to-peer messages and file transfer
• HTTPS/WSS backend with local self-signed certificates
• React/Vite dashboard for hosts, packets, sessions, and peers

Tech Stack

• Rust, Tokio, Axum
• pcap, pnet, etherparse
• mDNS, rustls
• React, TypeScript, Vite
• Docker