Traffic Log

The Traffic panel is SimNet's "monitoring center" — it records every packet on the network in real time. If the Topology view is like "looking at a map," then the Traffic log is like "watching a dashcam recording," letting you see where each vehicle (packet) departed, the route it took, and the cargo it carried.

Packet List

The main body of the panel is a table where each row represents one packet. The columns are:

Column	Description
#	Sequence number, ordered by the packet's arrival
Tick	Simulation timestamp — which clock cycle (Tick) of the simulation engine captured this packet
Protocol	Protocol name, rendered as a colored badge
Source	Source device (sender)
→	Direction arrow
Destination	Destination device (receiver)
Summary	A brief summary of what this packet is doing
Size	Packet size (Bytes or KB)

On the left edge of each row there's a thin colored indicator bar matching the packet's protocol color, so you can recognize different kinds of traffic at a glance.

Protocol Colors

Different network protocols are marked with different colors so you can tell them apart instantly:

Protocol	Color	Description
Ethernet	Gray	The foundational frame format of the Data Link Layer
ARP	Orange	Address Resolution Protocol — looks up the MAC address for an IP
IPv4	Purple	The primary protocol at the Network Layer
TCP	Cyan	Transport Layer — reliable, connection-oriented transport
HTTP	Green	Application Layer — the web transfer protocol
ICMP	Orange	Internet Control Message Protocol — used by ping
DNS	Pink	Domain Name System — translates hostnames into IPs

Color = Protocol Layer

Notice the pattern? The colors roughly correspond to different layers of the OSI model. Gray Ethernet sits at the bottom, green HTTP sits at the top. As you complete more challenges, you'll grow more familiar with these colors — eventually a single glance at the color will tell you what's happening on the network.

Filtering Packets

Protocol Filter

At the top of the panel there's a row of rounded pill buttons (Protocol Pills): All, Ethernet, ARP, IPv4, TCP, HTTP, ICMP, DNS.

• Click All to show every packet (default)
• Click a protocol (e.g. ARP) to show only packets of that protocol

Filtering is incredibly useful when you're tracing a specific behavior. For example, if you're studying an ARP spoofing attack, clicking ARP filters out the noise so you only see ARP packets.

Text Search

Type a keyword into the search box in the top-right to filter by device name or packet summary. For example, typing server1 will surface all packets related to server1.

Next to the search box, the current count of matching packets is shown (e.g. "12 pkts").

Expanding Packet Details

Clicking any packet row expands a detail panel for that packet. Here you'll see:

Protocol Layers

Packet details are presented layer by layer — like peeling an onion, you look inside one layer at a time. For example, an HTTP packet might have these layers:

1. Ethernet — source MAC, destination MAC, type
2. IPv4 — source IP, destination IP, TTL
3. TCP — source port, destination port, flags
4. HTTP — method, URL, status code

Each layer can be collapsed or expanded by clicking the arrow next to its title. The colored left border next to the layer name matches that protocol's color.

The contents of each layer are laid out in a "field name : value" format, for example:

Source MAC    : aa:bb:cc:00:00:02
Dest MAC      : aa:bb:cc:00:00:01
EtherType     : 0x0800

Auto-Scrolling

When new packets keep streaming in, the panel automatically scrolls to the bottom so you always see the latest ones. You'll see a small "↓ Auto-scrolling" indicator in the bottom-right corner.

If you scroll up to review older packets, auto-scrolling pauses — the view won't suddenly jump away. A button appears at the bottom: "New packets — click to resume auto-scroll". Click it to jump back to the bottom and keep watching the latest packets.

A Practical Workflow

A common analysis flow looks like this:

1. Run tcpdump in the Terminal to start capturing
2. Run ping or another command to generate traffic
3. Switch to the Traffic panel to watch the packets
4. Use the protocol filter to find the packets you care about
5. Click to expand and inspect each layer's details

Topology + Traffic + Terminal together form a complete network-analysis workflow.