how do i capture packets in a local network in java..is there any package that helps me out..am tryin to develop a network monitoring tool..any idea abt how to start in this aspect?
Yes it's easy to access HTTP from Java. Yes it's easy to create client/server application. But raw packets' capturing and parsing is not as easy as you expect...Anyway - you should search for jpcap (or something like this, I'm not sure about exact name) library.