How to install Fing on your machine

Getting started with fing is really easy. Download the file for your platform and follow the instructions below to install and configure fing. The only pre-requisite is an administrative user account is required to install and run the software. Such a security restriction is enforced on every operating system to make sure the network is appropriately protected.

• On Linux machines, it means you must be logged as root user to install the package. Other equally-powerful accounts and the installation through sudo command is correct, too.
• On Mac OS X, it means that you must be logged as an user having Administrator privileges. If you are unsure of your user type, click on your User Name in the menubar and select "Account Preferences...". A dialog will prompt a list of all users and types (Standard, Admin, System). You must be either Admin or System to install fing. 
• On Windows, it means that you must be logged as a user having Local Administrator privileges. If you are unsure of your user type, click on Start | Settings | Control Panel | User accounts. A dialog will popup and you shall see the account's type (Standard or Administrator). You must be an Administrator to install fing. 

You don't need to be a Network Administrator nor a Domain Administrator to run fing.

Installing on Windows

Fing installation on Windows is straightforward: download the package and install it. If you do not have winpcap packet capture library in your system, you will be also prompted to install it. When asked to enable the Winpcap 'NPF' Windows service, you can decide whether: 

• to install and start the NPF service, thus allowing fing (and other packet capture tools) to be used by any non-admin user in the system
• not to install the NFP service, so that only admin user accounts will be allowed to use fing

As soon as installation is complete, you can open a command prompt and start finging 

fing

Installing on Mac OS X

After having downloaded the dmg file for your Apple Mac Os X, open the pkg file, and follow the instructions provided by the installer. When installed properly, open a terminal and run

sudo fing

Installing on Linux

On Linux platforms, RPM and DEB packages are supported, on both 32bit and 64bit platforms. Download the package most suitable for your distribution and open a terminal window and type 

sudo dpkg -i overlook-fing-1.0.deb

if you are on a DEB-based distribution, or

sudo rpm -i overlook-fing-1.0.rpm

if you are on a RPM-based distribution.

After the installation has succesfully completed, open a terminal and run

sudo fing