Tutorials

xNET is a macOS application that discovers devices and services on your local network and draws them as an interactive graph. It uses Bonjour (mDNS) as its primary source, with optional extended discovery (ARP and UPnP SSDP) for hardware that does not advertise Bonjour.

 

First launch

• Open the app from Xcode or your built .app. The main window shows a canvas rooted at “Local Network.”

• macOS may prompt for local network access; allow it so discovery can run.

• Wait for “Starting discovery…” to finish; hosts appear as the map builds.

 

Main window

• Refresh (toolbar): restarts Bonjour discovery and updates the map.

• Click a device node: opens a popover with advertised services, resolved addresses, and actions (where available).

• Pan and zoom the canvas to explore large networks.

 

Menu shortcuts

• About xNET: App menu.

• Zoom In / Out: Command+Plus, Command+Minus.

• Focus Local Network: Command+Shift+R (centers on the root).

• Enable / Disable Latency Heatmap: Command+Shift+L.

• Extended Scan: Command+Shift+X (toggles extended LAN discovery; same as Settings).

• Export Network Map: JSON (Command+Shift+E), CSV, PNG (Command+Shift+P), or PDF.

 

Settings (Command+,)

• Extended LAN discovery: Also reads the ARP table and sends SSDP probes so routers and other non-Bonjour devices may appear. After changing this, use Refresh. A non-sandboxed build is required for these probes to succeed in full.

• Network Graph: Layout direction, connection style (curved vs hierarchical), line color and thickness, and (for hierarchical layout) an option to reduce overlapping lines.