JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) is a software development framework aimed at developing multi-agent systems and applications, conforming to FIPA standard for intelligent agents. The Sniffer, as the name itself points out, is a pure Java application created for tracking messages exchanged in a Jade based environment. The Sniffer is completely integrated in Jade environment ad is particularly useful when debugging agents behaviours.
The Sniffer is basically a Fipa-compliant Agent with sniffing features.

When the user decides to sniff an agent or a group of agents, every message directed to that agent agent/group or coming from that agent/group is tracked and displayed in the sniffer Gui. The user can view every message, save it to disk as a text file or serialize it as a binary file for later usage.

For more informations on how to use controls please see the Visual Index section.

Starting the Sniffer

The Sniffer can be started in three different ways:

1. First you can click on the Start Sniffer icon on the rma toolbar. By doing so a sniffer agent is created and is assigned the name snifferX, where X is a progressive number starting from 0.
2. Second you can click on the Start Sniffer item in the rma Tools menu. This performs the same task as previously described.
3. You can manually create a new instance of the Sniffer: this is useful if you want the Sniffer to have a name different from the standard one. To do so you have to click on the Start New Agent icon on the rma toolbar: this brings up a dialog box in which you have to provide some informations as follows
   
   
   
   In the Agent Name field you have to provide the Sniffer name.
   In the Class Name field you have to write jade.tools.sniffer.Sniffer because the Sniffer class is contained in the package jade.tools.sniffer.
   When you are done just click on the Ok button.

JADE is a trademark of CSELT. JADE has been developed jointly by CSELT and the Computer Engineering Group of the University of Parma