I taught myself how to terminate ethernet recently. The crimper and rj45 jacks I bought from Randolph-Hale Electronics. So far I’ve only had one failed cable after making several. I thought I was going to need a cable tester but now it seems I can do without it.

Then, on Friday, I decided that I was going to build an Ethernet Tap.

An Ethernet tap is a series of four RJ45 keystone jacks that are wired up to intercept all traffic that passes through it. The two jacks in the middle will each see half of a full-duplex connection. Obviously, two NICs are required to listen to both sides of the connection but I can try merging the separate capture files later. After getting this device built the next step will be reconfiguring the network topology in the office. Right now the router and server sit on opposite sides of the room but if the router and switch flip flop it might work.