i'm currently running ubuntu nix on my laptop and i'm wanting to use it to test my home network security. any advice on programs to use to test my security?

nmap
You will also find links to many other utilities on that site.

thank you dxq i'll check that out.

Nessus is a good one:
http://www.nessus.org/nessus/

The Network Security Toolkit is a swiss army knife collection of tools...
http://www.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nst/index.html

metasploit is another good one, although this one probably goes beyond pentesting...its more of a forensics tool.

Here's a good list of 5:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic..._testing_tools

Here's someone's view of the top tools:

http://mattiasgeniar.be/2008/09/23/t...lysis-hacking/

Both pages have good recommendations.

Note that you don't have 'real' pentesting tools to pentest. You can begin with Snort or commandline TCPDump or Wireshark (GUI sniff tool). Understanding things such as network traffic negotiation (three-way handshake and such) and protocols such as ARP and UDP will help a ton when looking at raw traffic with Wireshark or TCPDump.

Have fun!