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-
- The Ethereal FAQ
-
- Note: This is just an ASCII snapshot of the faq and may not be up to
- date. Please go to http://www.ethereal.com/faq.html for the up
- to date version. The version of this snapshot can be found at
- the end of this document.
-
- INDEX
-
-
- General Questions:
-
- 1.1 Where can I get help?
-
- 1.2 How much does Ethereal cost?
-
- 1.3 Can I use Ethereal commercially?
-
- 1.4 Can I use Ethereal as part of my commercial product?
-
- 1.5 What protocols are currently supported?
-
- 1.6 Are there any plans to support {your favorite protocol}?
-
- 1.7 Can Ethereal read capture files from {your favorite network
- analyzer}?
-
- 1.8 What devices can Ethereal use to capture packets?
-
- 1.9 How do you pronounce Ethereal? Where did the name come from?
-
- Downloading Ethereal:
-
- 2.1 I downloaded the Win32 installer, but when I try to run it, I get
- an error.
-
- 2.2 When I try to download the WinPcap driver and library, I can't get
- to the WinPcap Web site.
-
- Installing Ethereal:
-
- 3.1 I installed an Ethereal RPM, but Ethereal doesn't seem to be
- installed; only Tethereal is installed.
-
- Building Ethereal:
-
- 4.1 The configure script can't find pcap.h or bpf.h, but I have
- libpcap installed.
-
- 4.2 Why do I get the error
-
- dftest_DEPENDENCIES was already defined in condition TRUE, which
- implies condition HAVE_PLUGINS_TRUE
-
- when I try to build Ethereal from SVN or a SVN snapshot?
-
- 4.3 The link fails with a number of "Output line too long." messages
- followed by linker errors.
-
- 4.4 The link fails on Solaris because plugin_list is undefined.
-
- 4.5 The build fails on Windows because of conflicts between winsock.h
- and winsock2.h.
-
- Using Ethereal:
-
- 5.1 When I use Ethereal to capture packets, I see only packets to and
- from my machine, or I'm not seeing all the traffic I'm expecting to
- see from or to the machine I'm trying to monitor.
-
- 5.2 I can't see any TCP packets other than packets to and from my
- machine, even though another analyzer on the network sees those
- packets.
-
- 5.3 I'm only seeing ARP packets when I try to capture traffic.
-
- 5.4 I'm running Ethereal on Windows; why does some network interface
- on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces in the
- "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start",
- and/or why does Ethereal give me an error if I try to capture on that
- interface?
-
- 5.5 I'm running Ethereal on Windows; why do no network interfaces show
- up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field in the dialog
- box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
-
- 5.6 I'm running Ethereal on Windows; why doesn't my serial port/ADSL
- modem/ISDN modem show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:"
- field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
-
- 5.7 I'm running Ethereal on a UNIX-flavored OS; why does some network
- interface on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces in the
- "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start",
- and/or why does Ethereal give me an error if I try to capture on that
- interface?
-
- 5.8 I'm running Ethereal on a UNIX-flavored OS; why do no network
- interfaces show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field
- in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
-
- 5.9 Can Ethereal capture on (my T1/E1 line, SS7 links, etc.)?
-
- 5.10 How do I put an interface into promiscuous mode?
-
- 5.11 I can set a display filter just fine, but capture filters don't
- work.
-
- 5.12 I'm entering valid capture filters, but I still get "parse error"
- errors.
-
- 5.13 I saved a filter and tried to use its name to filter the display,
- but I got an "Unexpected end of filter string" error.
-
- 5.14 Why am I seeing lots of packets with incorrect TCP checksums?
-
- 5.15 I've just installed Ethereal, and the traffic on my local LAN is
- boring.
-
- 5.16 When I run Ethereal on Solaris 8, it dies with a Bus Error when I
- start it.
-
- 5.17 When I run Ethereal, I get an error
-
- Gtk-CRITICAL **: file gtkwindow.c: line 3107 (gtk_window_resize):
- assertion `height > 0' failed.
-
- 5.18 When I run Tethereal with the "-x" option, it crashes with an
- error
-
- "** ERROR **: file print.c: line 691 (print_line): should not be
- reached.
-
- 5.19 When I run Ethereal on Windows NT, it dies with a Dr. Watson
- error, reporting an "Integer division by zero" exception, when I start
- it.
-
- 5.20 When I try to run Ethereal, it complains about
- sprint_realloc_objid being undefined.
-
- 5.21 I'm running Ethereal on Linux; why do my time stamps have only
- 100ms resolution, rather than 1us resolution?
-
- 5.22 I'm capturing packets on {Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me};
- why are the time stamps on packets wrong?
-
- 5.23 When I try to run Ethereal on Windows, it fails to run because it
- can't find packet.dll.
-
- 5.24 I'm running Ethereal on Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows
- XP/Windows Server 2003; my machine has a PPP (dial-up POTS, ISDN,
- etc.) interface, and it shows up in the "Interface" item in the
- "Capture Options" dialog box. Why can no packets be sent on or
- received from that network while I'm trying to capture traffic on that
- interface?
-
- 5.25 I'm running Ethereal on Windows 95/98/Me, on a machine with more
- than one network adapter of the same type; Ethereal shows all of those
- adapters with the same name, but I can't use any of those adapters
- other than the first one.
-
- 5.26 I'm running Ethereal on Windows, and I'm not seeing any traffic
- being sent by the machine running Ethereal.
-
- 5.27 I'm trying to capture traffic but I'm not seeing any.
-
- 5.28 I have an XXX network card on my machine; if I try to capture on
- it, my machine crashes or resets itself.
-
- 5.29 My machine crashes or resets itself when I select "Start" from
- the "Capture" menu or select "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu.
-
- 5.30 Does Ethereal work on Windows Me?
-
- 5.31 Does Ethereal work on Windows XP?
-
- 5.32 Why doesn't Ethereal correctly identify RTP packets? It shows
- them only as UDP.
-
- 5.33 Why doesn't Ethereal show Yahoo Messenger packets in captures
- that contain Yahoo Messenger traffic?
-
- 5.34 Why do I get the error
-
- Gdk-ERROR **: Palettized display (256-colour) mode not supported on
- Windows.
- aborting....
-
- when I try to run Ethereal on Windows?
-
- 5.35 When I capture on Windows in promiscuous mode, I can see packets
- other than those sent to or from my machine; however, those packets
- show up with a "Short Frame" indication, unlike packets to or from my
- machine. What should I do to arrange that I see those packets in their
- entirety?
-
- 5.36 I'm capturing packets on a machine on a VLAN; why don't the
- packets I'm capturing have VLAN tags?
-
- 5.37 How can I capture raw 802.11 packets, including non-data
- (management, beacon) packets?
-
- 5.38 How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode on Linux?
-
- 5.39 How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode on FreeBSD?
-
- 5.40 How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode on NetBSD?
-
- 5.41 I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I not
- seeing any packets?
-
- 5.42 I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I seeing
- packets received by the machine on which I'm capturing traffic, but
- not packets sent by that machine?
-
- 5.43 How can I capture packets with CRC errors?
-
- 5.44 How can I capture entire frames, including the FCS?
-
- 5.45 Why does Ethereal hang after I stop a capture?
-
- 5.46 How can I search for, or filter, packets that have a particular
- string anywhere in them?
-
- 5.47 How do I filter a capture to see traffic for virus XXX?
-
- General Questions
-
- Q 1.1: Where can I get help?
-
- A: Support is available on the ethereal-users mailing list.
- Subscription information and archives for all of Ethereal's mailing
- lists can be found at http://www.ethereal.com/lists
-
- Q 1.2: How much does Ethereal cost?
-
- A: Ethereal is "free software"; you can download it without paying any
- license fee. The version of Ethereal you download isn't a "demo"
- version, with limitations not present in a "full" version; it is the
- full version.
-
- The license under which Ethereal is issued is the GNU General Public
- License. See the GNU GPL FAQ for some more information.
-
- Q 1.3: Can I use Ethereal commercially?
-
- A: Yes, if, for example, you mean "I work for a commercial
- organization; can I use Ethereal to capture and analyze network
- traffic in our company's networks or in our customer's networks?"
-
- If you mean "Can I use Ethereal as part of my commercial product?",
- see the next entry in the FAQ.
-
- Q 1.4: Can I use Ethereal as part of my commercial product?
-
- A: As noted, Ethereal is licensed under the GNU General Public
- License. The GPL imposes conditions on your use of GPL'ed code in your
- own products; you cannot, for example, make a "derived work" from
- Ethereal, by making modifications to it, and then sell the resulting
- derived work and not allow recipients to give away the resulting work.
- You must also make the changes you've made to the Ethereal source
- available to all recipients of your modified version; those changes
- must also be licensed under the terms of the GPL. See the GPL FAQ for
- more details; in particular, note the answer to the question about
- modifying a GPLed program and selling it commercially, and the
- question about linking GPLed code with other code to make a
- proprietary program.
-
- You can combine a GPLed program such as Ethereal and a commercial
- program as long as they communicate "at arm's length", as per this
- item in the GPL FAQ.
-
- Q 1.5: What protocols are currently supported?
-
- A: There are currently 658 supported protocols and media, listed
- below. Descriptions can be found in the ethereal(1) man page.
-
- 3GPP2 A11
- 802.1q Virtual LAN
- 802.1x Authentication
- AAL type 2 signalling protocol - Capability set 1 (Q.2630.1)
- ACN
- AFS (4.0) Replication Server call declarations
- AIM Administrative
- AIM Advertisements
- AIM Buddylist Service
- AIM Chat Navigation
- AIM Chat Service
- AIM Directory Search
- AIM E-mail
- AIM Generic Service
- AIM ICQ
- AIM Invitation Service
- AIM Location
- AIM Messaging
- AIM OFT
- AIM Popup
- AIM Privacy Management Service
- AIM Server Side Info
- AIM Server Side Themes
- AIM Signon
- AIM Statistics
- AIM Translate
- AIM User Lookup
- ANSI A-I/F BSMAP
- ANSI A-I/F DTAP
- ANSI IS-637-A (SMS) Teleservice Layer
- ANSI IS-637-A (SMS) Transport Layer
- ANSI IS-683-A (OTA (Mobile))
- ANSI IS-801 (Location Services (PLD))
- ANSI Mobile Application Part
- AOL Instant Messenger
- ARCNET
- ASN.1 decoding
- ATAoverEthernet
- ATM
- ATM AAL1
- ATM AAL3/4
- ATM LAN Emulation
- ATM OAM AAL
- AVS WLAN Capture header
- AX/4000 Test Block
- Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol
- Adaptive Multi-Rate
- Address Resolution Protocol
- Aggregate Server Access Protocol
- Alert Standard Forum
- Alteon - Transparent Proxy Cache Protocol
- Andrew File System (AFS)
- Apache JServ Protocol v1.3
- Apple IP-over-IEEE 1394
- AppleTalk Filing Protocol
- AppleTalk Session Protocol
- AppleTalk Transaction Protocol packet
- Appletalk Address Resolution Protocol
- Application Configuration Access Protocol
- Art-Net
- Async data over ISDN (V.120)
- Asynchronous Layered Coding
- Authentication Header
- BACnet Virtual Link Control
- BEA Tuxedo
- BSSAP/BSAP
- Banyan Vines ARP
- Banyan Vines Echo
- Banyan Vines Fragmentation Protocol
- Banyan Vines ICP
- Banyan Vines IP
- Banyan Vines IPC
- Banyan Vines LLC
- Banyan Vines RTP
- Banyan Vines SPP
- Base Station Subsystem GPRS Protocol
- Basic Encoding Rules (ASN.1 X.690)
- Bearer Independent Call Control
- Bi-directional Fault Detection Control Message
- BitTorrent
- Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol
- Blubster/Piolet MANOLITO Protocol
- Boardwalk
- Boot Parameters
- Bootstrap Protocol
- Border Gateway Protocol
- Building Automation and Control Network APDU
- Building Automation and Control Network NPDU
- CBAPhysicalDevice
- CCSDS
- CDS Clerk Server Calls
- Cast Client Control Protocol
- Certificate Management Protocol
- Certificate Request Message Format
- Check Point High Availability Protocol
- Checkpoint FW-1
- Cisco Auto-RP
- Cisco Discovery Protocol
- Cisco Group Management Protocol
- Cisco HDLC
- Cisco Hot Standby Router Protocol
- Cisco ISL
- Cisco Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
- Cisco NetFlow
- Cisco SLARP
- Cisco Session Management
- Clearcase NFS
- CoSine IPNOS L2 debug output
- Common Industrial Protocol
- Common Open Policy Service
- Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) Browsing Protocol
- Compuserve GIF
- Configuration Test Protocol (loopback)
- Connectionless Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
- Coseventcomm Dissector Using GIOP API
- Cosnaming Dissector Using GIOP API
- Cross Point Frame Injector
- Cryptographic Message Syntax
- DCE Distributed Time Service Local Server
- DCE Distributed Time Service Provider
- DCE Name Service
- DCE RPC
- DCE Security ID Mapper
- DCE/RPC BOS Server
- DCE/RPC BUDB
- DCE/RPC BUTC
- DCE/RPC CDS Solicitation
- DCE/RPC Conversation Manager
- DCE/RPC Directory Acl Interface
- DCE/RPC Endpoint Mapper
- DCE/RPC Endpoint Mapper v4
- DCE/RPC FLDB
- DCE/RPC FLDB UBIK TRANSFER
- DCE/RPC FLDB UBIKVOTE
- DCE/RPC ICL RPC
- DCE/RPC Kerberos V
- DCE/RPC NCS 1.5.1 Local Location Broker
- DCE/RPC Operations between registry server replicas
- DCE/RPC Prop Attr
- DCE/RPC RS_ACCT
- DCE/RPC RS_BIND
- DCE/RPC RS_MISC
- DCE/RPC RS_PROP_ACCT
- DCE/RPC RS_UNIX
- DCE/RPC Registry Password Management
- DCE/RPC Registry Server Attributes Schema
- DCE/RPC Registry server propagation interface - ACLs.
- DCE/RPC Registry server propagation interface - PGO items
- DCE/RPC Registry server propagation interface - properties and poli
- cies
- DCE/RPC Remote Management
- DCE/RPC Repserver Calls
- DCE/RPC TokenServer Calls
- DCE/RPC UpServer
- DCOM
- DCOM IDispatch
- DCOM IRemoteActivation
- DCOM OXID Resolver
- DEC Spanning Tree Protocol
- DFS Calls
- DG Gryphon Protocol
- DHCP Failover
- DHCPv6
- DICOM
- DNS Control Program Server
- DOCSIS 1.1
- DOCSIS Appendix C TLV's
- DOCSIS Baseline Privacy Key Management Attributes
- DOCSIS Baseline Privacy Key Management Request
- DOCSIS Baseline Privacy Key Management Response
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Addition Acknowledge
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Addition Request
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Addition Response
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Change Acknowledgement
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Change Request
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Change Response
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Delete Request
- DOCSIS Dynamic Service Delete Response
- DOCSIS Initial Ranging Message
- DOCSIS Mac Management
- DOCSIS Range Request Message
- DOCSIS Ranging Response
- DOCSIS Registration Acknowledge
- DOCSIS Registration Requests
- DOCSIS Registration Responses
- DOCSIS Upstream Bandwidth Allocation
- DOCSIS Upstream Channel Change Request
- DOCSIS Upstream Channel Change Response
- DOCSIS Upstream Channel Descriptor
- DOCSIS Upstream Channel Descriptor Type 29
- DOCSIS Vendor Specific Endodings
- Data
- Data Link SWitching
- Data Stream Interface
- Datagram Delivery Protocol
- Decompressed SigComp message as raw text
- Diameter Protocol
- Digital Audio Access Protocol
- Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol
- Distcc Distributed Compiler
- Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse Protocol
- Distributed Network Protocol 3.0
- Domain Name Service
- Dynamic DNS Tools Protocol
- ENTTEC
- Echo
- Encapsulating Security Payload
- Endpoint Name Resolution Protocol
- Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
- EtherNet/IP (Industrial Protocol)
- Etheric
- Ethernet
- Ethernet over IP
- Extended Security Services
- Extensible Authentication Protocol
- FC Extended Link Svc
- FC Fabric Configuration Server
- FCIP
- FTP Data
- FTServer Operations
- Fiber Distributed Data Interface
- Fibre Channel
- Fibre Channel Common Transport
- Fibre Channel Fabric Zone Server
- Fibre Channel Name Server
- Fibre Channel Protocol for SCSI
- Fibre Channel SW_ILS
- Fibre Channel Security Protocol
- Fibre Channel Single Byte Command
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
- Financial Information eXchange Protocol
- Frame
- Frame Relay
- GARP Multicast Registration Protocol
- GARP VLAN Registration Protocol
- GPRS Network service
- GPRS Tunneling Protocol
- GSM A-I/F BSSMAP
- GSM A-I/F DTAP
- GSM A-I/F RP
- GSM Mobile Application Part
- GSM SMS TPDU (GSM 03.40)
- GSM Short Message Service User Data
- General Inter-ORB Protocol
- Generic Routing Encapsulation
- Generic Security Service Application Program Interface
- Gnutella Protocol
- H.248 MEGACO
- H235-SECURITY-MESSAGES
- HP Extended Local-Link Control
- HP Remote Maintenance Protocol
- Hummingbird NFS Daemon
- HyperSCSI
- Hypertext Transfer Protocol
- ICBAAccoCallback
- ICBAAccoCallback2
- ICBAAccoMgt
- ICBAAccoMgt2
- ICBAAccoServer
- ICBAAccoServer2
- ICBAAccoServerSRT
- ICBAAccoSync
- ICBABrowse
- ICBABrowse2
- ICBAGroupError
- ICBAGroupErrorEvent
- ICBALogicalDevice
- ICBALogicalDevice2
- ICBAPersist
- ICBAPersist2
- ICBAPhysicalDevice
- ICBAPhysicalDevice2
- ICBAPhysicalDevicePC
- ICBAPhysicalDevicePCEvent
- ICBARTAuto
- ICBARTAuto2
- ICBAState
- ICBAStateEvent
- ICBASystemProperties
- ICBATime
- ICQ Protocol
- IEEE 802.11 Radiotap Capture header
- IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN
- IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN management frame
- IEEE802a OUI Extended Ethertype
- ILMI
- IP Device Control (SS7 over IP)
- IP Over FC
- IP Payload Compression
- IP Virtual Services Sync Daemon
- IPX Message
- IPX Routing Information Protocol
- IPX WAN
- IRemUnknown
- IRemUnknown2
- ISDN
- ISDN Q.921-User Adaptation Layer
- ISDN User Part
- ISO 10589 ISIS InTRA Domain Routeing Information Exchange Protocol
- ISO 8073 COTP Connection-Oriented Transport Protocol
- ISO 8327-1 OSI Session Protocol
- ISO 8473 CLNP ConnectionLess Network Protocol
- ISO 8602 CLTP ConnectionLess Transport Protocol
- ISO 8823 OSI Presentation Protocol
- ISO 9542 ESIS Routeing Information Exchange Protocol
- ISystemActivator ISystemActivator Resolver
- ITU-T E.164 number
- ITU-T Recommendation H.261
- ITU-T Recommendation H.263 RTP Payload header (RFC2190)
- InMon sFlow
- Information Access Protocol
- Intel ANS probe
- Intelligent Platform Management Interface
- Inter-Access-Point Protocol
- Inter-Asterisk eXchange v2
- InterSwitch Message Protocol
- Interbase
- Internet Cache Protocol
- Internet Communications Engine Protocol
- Internet Content Adaptation Protocol
- Internet Control Message Protocol
- Internet Control Message Protocol v6
- Internet Group Management Protocol
- Internet Group membership Authentication Protocol
- Internet Message Access Protocol
- Internet Printing Protocol
- Internet Protocol
- Internet Protocol Version 6
- Internet Relay Chat
- Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol
- Internetwork Packet eXchange
- IrCOMM Protocol
- IrDA Link Access Protocol
- IrDA Link Management Protocol
- JPEG File Interchange Format
- JXTA P2P
- Jabber XML Messaging
- Java RMI
- Java Serialization
- Kerberos
- Kerberos Administration
- Kerberos v4
- Kernel Lock Manager
- LWAP Control Message
- LWAPP Encapsulated Packet
- LWAPP Layer 3 Packet
- Label Distribution Protocol
- Laplink
- Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol
- Light Weight DNS RESolver (BIND9)
- Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
- Line Printer Daemon Protocol
- Line-based text data
- Link Access Procedure Balanced (LAPB)
- Link Access Procedure Balanced Ethernet (LAPBETHER)
- Link Access Procedure, Channel D (LAPD)
- Link Aggregation Control Protocol
- Link Management Protocol (LMP)
- Linux cooked-mode capture
- Local Management Interface
- LocalTalk Link Access Protocol
- Log Message
- Logical Link Control GPRS
- Logical-Link Control
- Logotype Certificate Extensions
- Lucent/Ascend debug output
- MAC Control
- MAP_DialoguePDU
- MDS Header
- MEGACO
- MIME Multipart Media Encapsulation
- MMS Message Encapsulation
- MS Kpasswd
- MS Proxy Protocol
- MSN Messenger Service
- MSNIP: Multicast Source Notification of Interest Protocol
- MTP 2 Transparent Proxy
- MTP 2 User Adaptation Layer
- MTP 3 User Adaptation Layer
- MTP2 Peer Adaptation Layer
- Media Gateway Control Protocol
- Media Type
- Media Type: message/http
- Message Transfer Part Level 2
- Message Transfer Part Level 3
- Message Transfer Part Level 3 Management
- Meta Analysis Tracing Engine
- Microsoft Directory Replication Service
- Microsoft Distributed File System
- Microsoft Distributed Link Tracking Server Service
- Microsoft Encrypted File System Service
- Microsoft Eventlog Service
- Microsoft Exchange MAPI
- Microsoft File Replication Service
- Microsoft File Replication Service API
- Microsoft Local Security Architecture
- Microsoft Local Security Architecture (Directory Services)
- Microsoft Messenger Service
- Microsoft Network Logon
- Microsoft Registry
- Microsoft Security Account Manager
- Microsoft Server Service
- Microsoft Service Control
- Microsoft Spool Subsystem
- Microsoft Task Scheduler Service
- Microsoft Telephony API Service
- Microsoft Windows Browser Protocol
- Microsoft Windows Lanman Remote API Protocol
- Microsoft Windows Logon Protocol
- Microsoft Workstation Service
- Mobile IP
- Mobile IPv6
- Modbus/TCP
- Mount Service
- MultiProtocol Label Switching Header
- Multicast Router DISCovery protocol
- Multicast Source Discovery Protocol
- Multiprotocol Label Switching Echo
- MySQL Protocol
- NFSACL
- NFSAUTH
- NIS+
- NIS+ Callback
- NSPI
- NTLM Secure Service Provider
- Name Binding Protocol
- Name Management Protocol over IPX
- Negative-acknowledgment Oriented Reliable Multicast
- NetBIOS
- NetBIOS Datagram Service
- NetBIOS Name Service
- NetBIOS Session Service
- NetBIOS over IPX
- NetScape Certificate Extensions
- NetWare Core Protocol
- NetWare Link Services Protocol
- NetWare Serialization Protocol
- Network Data Management Protocol
- Network File System
- Network Lock Manager Protocol
- Network News Transfer Protocol
- Network Service Over IP
- Network Status Monitor CallBack Protocol
- Network Status Monitor Protocol
- Network Time Protocol
- Nortel SONMP
- Novell Distributed Print System
- Novell Modular Authentication Service
- Null/Loopback
- OSI ISO 8571 FTAM Protocol
- OSI ISO/IEC 10035-1 ACSE Protocol
- Online Certificate Status Protocol
- Open Policy Service Interface
- Open Shortest Path First
- OpenBSD Encapsulating device
- OpenBSD Packet Filter log file
- OpenBSD Packet Filter log file, pre 3.4
- Optimized Link State Routing Protocol
- PC NFS
- PKCS#1
- PKINIT
- PKIX CERT File Format
- PKIX Qualified
- PKIX Time Stamp Protocol
- PKIX1Explitit
- PKIX1Implitit
- PKIXProxy (RFC3820)
- PPP Bandwidth Allocation Control Protocol
- PPP Bandwidth Allocation Protocol
- PPP CDP Control Protocol
- PPP Callback Control Protocol
- PPP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol
- PPP Compressed Datagram
- PPP Compression Control Protocol
- PPP IP Control Protocol
- PPP IPv6 Control Protocol
- PPP In HDLC-Like Framing
- PPP Link Control Protocol
- PPP MPLS Control Protocol
- PPP Multilink Protocol
- PPP Multiplexing
- PPP OSI Control Protocol
- PPP Password Authentication Protocol
- PPP VJ Compression
- PPP-over-Ethernet Discovery
- PPP-over-Ethernet Session
- PPPMux Control Protocol
- PROFINET DCP
- PROFINET IO
- PROFINET Real-Time Protocol
- Packed Encoding Rules (ASN.1 X.691)
- Packet Cable Lawful Intercept
- PacketCable
- Point-to-Point Protocol
- Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol
- Port Aggregation Protocol
- Portmap
- Post Office Protocol
- PostgreSQL
- Pragmatic General Multicast
- Precision Time Protocol (IEEE1588)
- Prism
- Privilege Server operations
- Protocol Independent Multicast
- Q.2931
- Q.931
- Q.933
- Quake II Network Protocol
- Quake III Arena Network Protocol
- Quake Network Protocol
- QuakeWorld Network Protocol
- Qualified Logical Link Control
- RDM
- RFC 2250 MPEG1
- RFC 2833 RTP Event
- RIPng
- RPC Browser
- RS Interface properties
- RSTAT
- RSYNC File Synchroniser
- RTcfg
- RX Protocol
- Radio Access Network Application Part
- Radius Protocol
- Raw packet data
- Real Time Streaming Protocol
- Real-Time Media Access Control
- Real-Time Publish-Subscribe Wire Protocol
- Real-Time Transport Protocol
- Real-time Transport Control Protocol
- Redundant Link Management Protocol
- Registry Server Attributes Manipulation Interface
- Registry server administration operations.
- Reliable UDP
- Remote Management Control Protocol
- Remote Override interface
- Remote Procedure Call
- Remote Program Load
- Remote Quota
- Remote Shell
- Remote Shutdown
- Remote Wall protocol
- Remote sec_login preauth interface.
- Resource ReserVation Protocol (RSVP)
- Rlogin Protocol
- Routing Information Protocol
- Routing Table Maintenance Protocol
- SADMIND
- SCSI
- SEBEK - Kernel Data Capture
- SGI Mount Service
- SMB (Server Message Block Protocol)
- SMB MailSlot Protocol
- SMB Pipe Protocol
- SNA-over-Ethernet
- SNMP Multiplex Protocol
- SPNEGO-KRB5
- SPRAY
- SS7 SCCP-User Adaptation Layer
- SSCF-NNI
- SSCOP
- SSH Protocol
- Secure Socket Layer
- Sequenced Packet eXchange
- Serial Infrared
- Service Advertisement Protocol
- Service Location Protocol
- Session Announcement Protocol
- Session Description Protocol
- Session Initiation Protocol
- Session Initiation Protocol (SIP as raw text)
- Short Message Peer to Peer
- Short Message Relaying Service
- Signaling Compression
- Signalling Connection Control Part
- Signalling Connection Control Part Management
- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
- Simple Network Management Protocol
- Simple Traversal of UDP Through NAT
- Sinec H1 Protocol
- Sipfrag
- Skinny Client Control Protocol
- SliMP3 Communication Protocol
- Socks Protocol
- SoulSeek Protocol
- Spanning Tree Protocol
- Spnego
- Stream Control Transmission Protocol
- Subnetwork Dependent Convergence Protocol
- Symantec Enterprise Firewall
- Synchronous Data Link Control (SDLC)
- Syslog message
- Systems Network Architecture
- Systems Network Architecture XID
- T.38
- TACACS
- TACACS+
- TDMA RTmac Discipline
- TEI Management Procedure, Channel D (LAPD)
- TPKT
- Tabular Data Stream
- Tazmen Sniffer Protocol
- Telnet
- Teredo IPv6 over UDP tunneling
- Time Protocol
- Time Synchronization Protocol
- Tiny Transport Protocol
- Token-Ring
- Token-Ring Media Access Control
- Transaction Capabilities Application Part
- Transmission Control Protocol
- Transparent Network Substrate Protocol
- Transport Adapter Layer Interface v1.0, RFC 3094
- Trivial File Transfer Protocol
- UDP Encapsulation of IPsec Packets
- Universal Computer Protocol
- User Datagram Protocol
- V5.2-User Adaptation Layer
- Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol
- Virtual Trunking Protocol
- WAP Binary XML
- WAP Session Initiation Request
- Web Cache Coordination Protocol
- WebSphere MQ
- WebSphere MQ Programmable Command Formats
- Wellfleet Breath of Life
- Wellfleet Compression
- Wellfleet HDLC
- Who
- Windows 2000 DNS
- Wireless Session Protocol
- Wireless Transaction Protocol
- Wireless Transport Layer Security
- X Display Manager Control Protocol
- X.25
- X.25 over TCP
- X.29
- X.509 Authentication Framework
- X.509 Certificate Extensions
- X.509 Information Framework
- X.509 Selected Attribute Types
- X11
- X711 CMIP
- Xyplex
- Yahoo Messenger Protocol
- Yahoo YMSG Messenger Protocol
- Yellow Pages Bind
- Yellow Pages Passwd
- Yellow Pages Service
- Yellow Pages Transfer
- Zebra Protocol
- Zone Information Protocol
- eDonkey Protocol
- giFT Internet File Transfer
- h225
- h245
- h450
- iSCSI
- iSNS
-
- Q 1.6: Are there any plans to support {your favorite protocol}?
-
- A: Support for particular protocols is added to Ethereal as a result
- of people contributing that support; no formal plans for adding
- support for particular protocols in particular future releases exist.
-
- Q 1.7: Can Ethereal read capture files from {your favorite network
- analyzer}?
-
- A: Support for particular protocols is added to Ethereal as a result
- of people contributing that support; no formal plans for adding
- support for particular protocols in particular future releases exist.
-
- If a network analyzer writes out files in a format already supported
- by Ethereal (e.g., in libpcap format), Ethereal may already be able to
- read them, unless the analyzer has added its own proprietary
- extensions to that format.
-
- If a network analyzer writes out files in its own format, or has added
- proprietary extensions to another format, in order to make Ethereal
- read captures from that network analyzer, we would either have to have
- a specification for the file format, or the extensions, sufficient to
- give us enough information to read the parts of the file relevant to
- Ethereal, or would need at least one capture file in that format AND a
- detailed textual analysis of the packets in that capture file (showing
- packet time stamps, packet lengths, and the top-level packet header)
- in order to reverse-engineer the file format.
-
- Note that there is no guarantee that we will be able to
- reverse-engineer a capture file format.
-
- Q 1.8: What devices can Ethereal use to capture packets?
-
- A: Ethereal can read live data from Ethernet, Token-Ring, FDDI, serial
- (PPP and SLIP) (if the OS on which it's running allows Ethereal to do
- so), 802.11 wireless LAN (if the OS on which it's running allows
- Ethereal to do so), ATM connections (if the OS on which it's running
- allows Ethereal to do so), and the "any" device supported on Linux by
- recent versions of libpcap. See the list of supported capture media on
- various OSes for details (several items in there say "Unknown", which
- doesn't mean "Ethereal can't capture on them", it means "we don't know
- whether it can capture on them"; we expect that it will be able to
- capture on many of them, but we haven't tried it ourselves - if you
- try one of those types and it works, please send an update to
- ethereal-web[AT]ethereal.com ).
-
- It can also read a variety of capture file formats, including:
- * AG Group/WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek/EtherHelp/Packet
- Grabber captures
- * AIX's iptrace captures
- * Accellent's 5Views LAN agent output
- * Cinco Networks NetXRay captures
- * Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System IPLog output
- * CoSine L2 debug output
- * DBS Etherwatch VMS text output
- * Endace Measurement Systems' ERF format captures
- * EyeSDN USB S0 traces
- * HP-UX nettl captures
- * ISDN4BSD project i4btrace captures
- * Linux Bluez Bluetooth stack hcidump -w traces
- * Lucent/Ascend router debug output
- * Microsoft Network Monitor captures
- * Network Associates Windows-based Sniffer captures
- * Network General/Network Associates DOS-based Sniffer (compressed
- or uncompressed) captures
- * Network Instruments Observer version 9 captures
- * Novell LANalyzer captures
- * RADCOM's WAN/LAN analyzer captures
- * Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor captures
- * Toshiba's ISDN routers dump output
- * VMS TCPIPtrace/TCPtrace/UCX$TRACE output
- * Visual Networks' Visual UpTime traffic capture
- * libpcap, tcpdump and various other tools using tcpdump's capture
- format
- * snoop and atmsnoop output
-
- so that it can read traces from various network types, as captured by
- other applications or equipment, even if it cannot itself capture on
- those network types.
-
- Q 1.9: How do you pronounce Ethereal? Where did the name come from?
-
- A: The English pronunciation can be found in Merriam-Webster's online
- dictionary at
- http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=ethereal.
-
- According to the book "Computer Networks" by Andrew Tannenbaum,
- Ethernet was named after the "luminiferous ether" which was once
- thought to carry electromagnetic radiation. Taking that into
- consideration, Ethereal seemed like an appropriate name for something
- that started out as an Ethernet analyzer.
-
- Downloading Ethereal
-
- Q 2.1: I downloaded the Win32 installer, but when I try to run it, I
- get an error.
-
- A: The program you used to download it may have downloaded it
- incorrectly. Web browsers sometimes may do this.
-
- Try downloading it with, for example:
- * Wget, for which Windows binaries are available on the SunSITE FTP
- server at sunsite.tk or Heiko Herold's windows wget spot - wGetGUI
- offers a GUI interface that uses wget;
- * WS_FTP from Ipswitch,
- * the ftp command that comes with Windows.
-
- If you use the ftp command, make sure you do the transfer in binary
- mode rather than ASCII mode, by using the binary command before
- transferring the file.
-
- Q 2.2: When I try to download the WinPcap driver and library, I can't
- get to the WinPcap Web site.
-
- A: As is the case with all Web sites, that site won't necessarily
- always be accessible; the server may be down due to a problem or down
- for maintenance, or there may be a networking problem between you and
- the server. You should try again later, or try the local mirror or the
- Wiretapped.net mirror.
-
- Installing Ethereal
-
- Q 3.1: I installed an Ethereal RPM, but Ethereal doesn't seem to be
- installed; only Tethereal is installed.
-
- A: Older versions of the Red Hat RPMs for Ethereal put only the
- non-GUI components into the ethereal RPM, the fact that Ethereal is a
- GUI program nonwithstanding; newer versions make it a bit clearer by
- giving that RPM a name starting with ethereal-base.
-
- In those older versions, there's a separate ethereal-gnome RPM that
- includes GUI components such as Ethereal itself, the fact that
- Ethereal doesn't use GNOME nonwithstanding; newer versions make it a
- bit clearer by giving that RPM a name starting with ethereal-gtk+.
-
- Find the ethereal-gnome or ethereal-gtk+ RPM, and install that also.
-
- Building Ethereal
-
- Q 4.1: The configure script can't find pcap.h or bpf.h, but I have
- libpcap installed.
-
- A: Are you sure pcap.h and bpf.h are installed? The official
- distribution of libpcap only installs the libpcap.a library file when
- "make install" is run. To install pcap.h and bpf.h, you must run "make
- install-incl". If you're running Debian or Redhat, make sure you have
- the "libpcap-dev" or "libpcap-devel" packages installed.
-
- It's also possible that pcap.h and bpf.h have been installed in a
- strange location. If this is the case, you may have to tweak
- aclocal.m4.
-
- Q 4.2: Why do I get the error
-
- dftest_DEPENDENCIES was already defined in condition TRUE, which
- implies condition HAVE_PLUGINS_TRUE
-
- when I try to build Ethereal from SVN or a SVN snapshot?
-
- A: You probably have automake 1.5 installed on your machine (the
- command automake --version will report the version of automake on your
- machine). There is a bug in that version of automake that causes this
- problem; upgrade to a later version of automake (1.6 or later).
-
- Q 4.3: The link fails with a number of "Output line too long."
- messages followed by linker errors.
-
- A: The version of the sed command on your system is incapable of
- handling very long lines. On Solaris, for example, /usr/bin/sed has a
- line length limit too low to allow libtool to work; /usr/xpg4/bin/sed
- can handle it, as can GNU sed if you have it installed.
-
- On Solaris, changing your command search path to search /usr/xpg4/bin
- before /usr/bin should make the problem go away; on any platform on
- which you have this problem, installing GNU sed and changing your
- command path to search the directory in which it is installed before
- searching the directory with the version of sed that came with the OS
- should make the problem go away.
-
- Q 4.4: The link fails on Solaris because plugin_list is undefined.
-
- A: This appears to be due to a problem with some versions of the GTK+
- and GLib packages from www.sunfreeware.org; un-install those packages,
- and try getting the 1.2.10 versions from that site, or the versions
- from The Written Word, or the versions from Sun's GNOME distribution,
- or the versions from the supplemental software CD that comes with the
- Solaris media kit, or build them from source from the GTK Web site.
- Then re-run the configuration script, and try rebuilding Ethereal. (If
- you get the 1.2.10 versions from www.sunfreeware.org, and the problem
- persists, un-install them and try installing one of the other versions
- mentioned.)
-
- Q 4.5: The build fails on Windows because of conflicts between
- winsock.h and winsock2.h.
-
- A: As of Ethereal 0.9.5, you must install WinPcap 2.3 or later, and
- the corresponding version of the developer's pack, in order to be able
- to compile Ethereal; it will not compile with older versions of the
- developer's pack. The symptoms of this failure are conflicts between
- definitions in winsock.h and in winsock2.h; Ethereal uses winsock2.h,
- but pre-2.3 versions of the WinPcap developer's packet use winsock.h.
- (2.3 uses winsock2.h, so if Ethereal were to use winsock.h, it would
- not be able to build with current versions of the WinPcap developer's
- pack.)
-
- Note that the installed version of the developer's pack should be the
- same version as the version of WinPcap you have installed.
-
- Using Ethereal
-
- Q 5.1: When I use Ethereal to capture packets, I see only packets to
- and from my machine, or I'm not seeing all the traffic I'm expecting
- to see from or to the machine I'm trying to monitor.
-
- A: This might be because the interface on which you're capturing is
- plugged into an Ethernet or Token Ring switch; on a switched network,
- unicast traffic between two ports will not necessarily appear on other
- ports - only broadcast and multicast traffic will be sent to all
- ports.
-
- Note that even if your machine is plugged into a hub, the "hub" may be
- a switched hub, in which case you're still on a switched network.
-
- Note also that on the Linksys Web site, they say that their
- auto-sensing hubs "broadcast the 10Mb packets to the port that operate
- at 10Mb only and broadcast the 100Mb packets to the ports that operate
- at 100Mb only", which would indicate that if you sniff on a 10Mb port,
- you will not see traffic coming sent to a 100Mb port, and vice versa.
- This problem has also been reported for Netgear dual-speed hubs, and
- may exist for other "auto-sensing" or "dual-speed" hubs.
-
- Some switches have the ability to replicate all traffic on all ports
- to a single port so that you can plug your analyzer into that single
- port to sniff all traffic. You would have to check the documentation
- for the switch to see if this is possible and, if so, to see how to do
- this. See the switch reference page on the Ethereal Wiki for
- information on some switches. (Note that it's a Wiki, so you can
- update or fix that information, or add additional information on those
- switches or information on new switches, yourself.)
-
- Note also that many firewall/NAT boxes have a switch built into them;
- this includes many of the "cable/DSL router" boxes. If you have a box
- of that sort, that has a switch with some number of Ethernet ports
- into which you plug machines on your network, and another Ethernet
- port used to connect to a cable or DSL modem, you can, at least, sniff
- traffic between the machines on your network and the Internet by
- plugging the Ethernet port on the router going to the modem, the
- Ethernet port on the modem, and the machine on which you're running
- Ethereal into a hub (make sure it's not a switching hub, and that, if
- it's a dual-speed hub, all three of those ports are running at the
- same speed.
-
- If your machine is not plugged into a switched network or a dual-speed
- hub, or it is plugged into a switched network but the port is set up
- to have all traffic replicated to it, the problem might be that the
- network interface on which you're capturing doesn't support
- "promiscuous" mode, or because your OS can't put the interface into
- promiscuous mode. Normally, network interfaces supply to the host
- only:
- * packets sent to one of that host's link-layer addresses;
- * broadcast packets;
- * multicast packets sent to a multicast address that the host has
- configured the interface to accept.
-
- Most network interfaces can also be put in "promiscuous" mode, in
- which they supply to the host all network packets they see. Ethereal
- will try to put the interface on which it's capturing into promiscuous
- mode unless the "Capture packets in promiscuous mode" option is turned
- off in the "Capture Options" dialog box, and Tethereal will try to put
- the interface on which it's capturing into promiscuous mode unless the
- -p option was specified. However, some network interfaces don't
- support promiscuous mode, and some OSes might not allow interfaces to
- be put into promiscuous mode.
-
- If the interface is not running in promiscuous mode, it won't see any
- traffic that isn't intended to be seen by your machine. It will see
- broadcast packets, and multicast packets sent to a multicast MAC
- address the interface is set up to receive.
-
- You should ask the vendor of your network interface whether it
- supports promiscuous mode. If it does, you should ask whoever supplied
- the driver for the interface (the vendor, or the supplier of the OS
- you're running on your machine) whether it supports promiscuous mode
- with that network interface.
-
- In the case of token ring interfaces, the drivers for some of them, on
- Windows, may require you to enable promiscuous mode in order to
- capture in promiscuous mode. See the Ethereal Wiki item on Token Ring
- capturing for details.
-
- In the case of wireless LAN interfaces, it appears that, when those
- interfaces are promiscuously sniffing, they're running in a
- significantly different mode from the mode that they run in when
- they're just acting as network interfaces (to the extent that it would
- be a significant effor for those drivers to support for promiscuously
- sniffing and acting as regular network interfaces at the same time),
- so it may be that Windows drivers for those interfaces don't support
- promiscuous mode.
-
- Q 5.2: I can't see any TCP packets other than packets to and from my
- machine, even though another analyzer on the network sees those
- packets.
-
- A: You're probably not seeing any packets other than unicast packets
- to or from your machine, and broadcast and multicast packets; a switch
- will normally send to a port only unicast traffic sent to the MAC
- address for the interface on that port, and broadcast and multicast
- traffic - it won't send to that port unicast traffic sent to a MAC
- address for some other interface - and a network interface not in
- promiscuous mode will receive only unicast traffic sent to the MAC
- address for that interface, broadcast traffic, and multicast traffic
- sent to a multicast MAC address the interface is set up to receive.
-
- TCP doesn't use broadcast or multicast, so you will only see your own
- TCP traffic, but UDP services may use broadcast or multicast so you'll
- see some UDP traffic - however, this is not a problem with TCP
- traffic, it's a problem with unicast traffic, as you also won't see
- all UDP traffic between other machines.
-
- I.e., this is probably the same question as this earlier one; see the
- response to that question.
-
- Q 5.3: I'm only seeing ARP packets when I try to capture traffic.
-
- A: You're probably on a switched network, and running Ethereal on a
- machine that's not sending traffic to the switch and not being sent
- any traffic from other machines on the switch. ARP packets are often
- broadcast packets, which are sent to all switch ports.
-
- I.e., this is probably the same question as this earlier one; see the
- response to that question.
-
- Q 5.4: I'm running Ethereal on Windows; why does some network
- interface on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces in the
- "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start",
- and/or why does Ethereal give me an error if I try to capture on that
- interface?
-
- A: If you are running Ethereal on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000,
- Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003, and this is the first time you
- have run a WinPcap-based program (such as Ethereal, or Tethereal, or
- WinDump, or Analyzer, or...) since the machine was rebooted, you need
- to run that program from an account with administrator privileges;
- once you have run such a program, you will not need administrator
- privileges to run any such programs until you reboot.
-
- If you are running on Windows 95/98/Me, or if you are running on
- Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003 and have
- administrator privileges or a WinPcap-based program has been run with
- those privileges since the machine rebooted, then note that Ethereal
- relies on the WinPcap library, on the WinPcap device driver, and on
- the facilities that come with the OS on which it's running in order to
- do captures.
-
- Therefore, if the OS, the WinPcap library, or the WinPcap driver don't
- support capturing on a particular network interface device, Ethereal
- won't be able to capture on that device.
-
- Note that:
- 1. 2.02 and earlier versions of the WinPcap driver and library that
- Ethereal uses for packet capture didn't support Token Ring
- interfaces; versions 2.1 and later support Token Ring, and the
- current version of Ethereal works with (and, in fact, requires)
- WinPcap 2.1 or later.
- If you are having problems capturing on Token Ring interfaces, and
- you have WinPcap 2.02 or an earlier version of WinPcap installed,
- you should uninstall WinPcap, download and install the current
- version of WinPcap, and then install the latest version of
- Ethereal.
- 2. On Windows 95, 98, or Me, sometimes more than one interface will
- be given the same name; if that is the case, you will only be able
- to capture on one of those interfaces - it's not clear to which
- one the name, when used in a WinPcap-based application, will
- refer. For example, if you have a PPP serial interface and a VPN
- interface, they might show up with the same name, for example
- "ppp-mac", and if you try to capture on "ppp-mac", it might not
- capture on the interface you're currently using. In that case, you
- might, for example, have to remove the VPN interface from the
- system in order to capture on the PPP serial interface.
- 3. WinPcap 2.3 has problems supporting PPP WAN interfaces on Windows
- NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, and, to
- avoid those problems, support for PPP WAN interfaces on those
- versions of Windows has been disabled in WinPcap 3.0. Regular
- dial-up lines, ISDN lines, ADSL connections using PPPoE or PPPoA,
- and various other lines such as T1/E1 lines are all PPP
- interfaces, so those interfaces might not show up on the list of
- interfaces in the "Capture Options" dialog on those OSes.
- On Windows 2000 and later, installing the beta version of WinPcap
- 3.1 might help, although, as it's a beta version, that might cause
- some other problems that don't occur with older versions of
- WinPcap; you should report those problems to the WinPcap
- developers, so that they can try to fix those problems before the
- final version of WinPcap 3.1 is released. WinPcap 3.1 will not
- support PPP captures on Windows NT 4.0. See the Ethereal Wiki item
- on PPP capturing for details.
- 4. WinPcap prior to 3.0 does not support multiprocessor machines
- (note that machines with a single multi-threaded processor, such
- as Intel's new multi-threaded x86 processors, are multiprocessor
- machines as far as the OS and WinPcap are concerned), and recent
- 2.x versions of WinPcap refuse to operate if they detect that
- they're running on a multiprocessor machine, which means that they
- may not show any network interfaces. You will need to use WinPcap
- 3.0 to capture on a multiprocessor machine.
-
- If an interface doesn't show up in the list of interfaces in the
- "Interface:" field, and you know the name of the interface, try
- entering that name in the "Interface:" field and capturing on that
- device.
-
- If the attempt to capture on it succeeds, the interface is somehow not
- being reported by the mechanism Ethereal uses to get a list of
- interfaces. Try listing the interfaces with WinDump; see the WinDump
- Web site or the local mirror of the WinDump Web site for information
- on using WinDump.
-
- You would run WinDump with the -D flag; if it lists the interface,
- please report this to ethereal-dev@ethereal.com giving full details of
- the problem, including
- * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
- operating system;
- * the type of network device you're using;
- * the output of WinDump.
-
- If WinDump does not list the interface, this is almost certainly a
- problem with one or more of:
- * the operating system you're using;
- * the device driver for the interface you're using;
- * the WinPcap library and/or the WinPcap device driver;
-
- so first check the WinPcap FAQ, the local mirror of that FAQ, or the
- Wiretapped.net mirror of that FAQ, to see if your problem is mentioned
- there. If not, then see the WinPcap support page (or the local mirror
- of that page) - check the "Submitting bugs" section.
-
- If you are having trouble capturing on a particular network interface,
- first try capturing on that device with WinDump; see the WinDump Web
- site or the local mirror of the WinDump Web site for information on
- using WinDump.
-
- If you can capture on the interface with WinDump, send mail to
- ethereal-users@ethereal.com giving full details of the problem,
- including
- * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
- operating system;
- * the type of network device you're using;
- * the error message you get from Ethereal.
-
- If you cannot capture on the interface with WinDump, this is almost
- certainly a problem with one or more of:
- * the operating system you're using;
- * the device driver for the interface you're using;
- * the WinPcap library and/or the WinPcap device driver;
-
- so first check the WinPcap FAQ, the local mirror of that FAQ, or the
- Wiretapped.net mirror of that FAQ, to see if your problem is mentioned
- there. If not, then see the WinPcap support page (or the local mirror
- of that page) - check the "Submitting bugs" section.
-
- You may also want to ask the ethereal-users@ethereal.com and the
- winpcap-users@winpcap.polito.it mailing lists to see if anybody
- happens to know about the problem and know a workaround or fix for the
- problem. (Note that you will have to subscribe to that list in order
- to be allowed to mail to it; see the WinPcap support page, or the
- local mirror of that page, for information on the mailing list.) In
- your mail, please give full details of the problem, as described
- above, and also indicate that the problem occurs with WinDump, not
- just with Ethereal.
-
- Q 5.5: I'm running Ethereal on Windows; why do no network interfaces
- show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field in the
- dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
-
- A: This is really the same question as the previous one; see the
- response to that question.
-
- Q 5.6: I'm running Ethereal on Windows; why doesn't my serial
- port/ADSL modem/ISDN modem show up in the list of interfaces in the
- "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
-
- A: Internet access on those devices is often done with the
- Point-to-Point (PPP) protocol; WinPcap 2.3 has problems supporting PPP
- WAN interfaces on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and
- Windows Server 2003, and, to avoid those problems, support for PPP WAN
- interfaces on those versions of Windows has been disabled in WinPcap
- 3.0.
-
- On Windows 2000 and later, installing the beta version of WinPcap 3.1
- might help, although, as it's a beta version, that might cause some
- other problems that don't occur with older versions of WinPcap; you
- should report those problems to the WinPcap developers, so that they
- can try to fix those problems before the final version of WinPcap 3.1
- is released. WinPcap 3.1 will not support PPP captures on Windows NT
- 4.0. See the Ethereal Wiki item on PPP capturing for details.
-
- Q 5.7: I'm running Ethereal on a UNIX-flavored OS; why does some
- network interface on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces
- in the "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by
- "Capture->Start", and/or why does Ethereal give me an error if I try
- to capture on that interface?
-
- A: You may need to run Ethereal from an account with sufficient
- privileges to capture packets, such as the super-user account, or may
- need to give your account sufficient privileges to capture packets.
- Only those interfaces that Ethereal can open for capturing show up in
- that list; if you don't have sufficient privileges to capture on any
- interfaces, no interfaces will show up in the list. See the Ethereal
- Wiki item on capture privileges for details on how to give a
- particular account or account group capture privileges on platforms
- where that can be done.
-
- If you are running Ethereal from an account with sufficient
- privileges, then note that Ethereal relies on the libpcap library, and
- on the facilities that come with the OS on which it's running in order
- to do captures. On some OSes, those facilities aren't present by
- default; see the Ethereal Wiki item on adding capture support for
- details.
-
- And, even if you're running with an account that has sufficient
- privileges to capture, and capture support is present in your OS, if
- the OS or the libpcap library don't support capturing on a particular
- network interface device or particular types of devices, Ethereal
- won't be able to capture on that device.
-
- On Solaris, note that libpcap 0.6.2 and earlier didn't support Token
- Ring interfaces; the current version, 0.7.2, does support Token Ring,
- and the current version of Ethereal works with libcap 0.7.2 and later.
-
- If an interface doesn't show up in the list of interfaces in the
- "Interface:" field, and you know the name of the interface, try
- entering that name in the "Interface:" field and capturing on that
- device.
-
- If the attempt to capture on it succeeds, the interface is somehow not
- being reported by the mechanism Ethereal uses to get a list of
- interfaces; please report this to ethereal-dev@ethereal.com giving
- full details of the problem, including
- * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
- operating system (for Linux, give both the version number of the
- kernel and the name and version number of the distribution you're
- using);
- * the type of network device you're using.
-
- If you are having trouble capturing on a particular network interface,
- and you've made sure that (on platforms that require it) you've
- arranged that packet capture support is present, as per the above,
- first try capturing on that device with tcpdump.
-
- If you can capture on the interface with tcpdump, send mail to
- ethereal-users@ethereal.com giving full details of the problem,
- including
- * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
- operating system (for Linux, give both the version number of the
- kernel and the name and version number of the distribution you're
- using);
- * the type of network device you're using;
- * the error message you get from Ethereal.
-
- If you cannot capture on the interface with tcpdump, this is almost
- certainly a problem with one or more of:
- * the operating system you're using;
- * the device driver for the interface you're using;
- * the libpcap library;
-
- so you should report the problem to the company or organization that
- produces the OS (in the case of a Linux distribution, report the
- problem to whoever produces the distribution).
-
- You may also want to ask the ethereal-users@ethereal.com and the
- tcpdump-workers@tcpdump.org mailing lists to see if anybody happens to
- know about the problem and know a workaround or fix for the problem.
- In your mail, please give full details of the problem, as described
- above, and also indicate that the problem occurs with tcpdump not just
- with Ethereal.
-
- Q 5.8: I'm running Ethereal on a UNIX-flavored OS; why do no network
- interfaces show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field
- in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
-
- A: This is really the same question as the previous one; see the
- response to that question.
-
- Q 5.9: Can Ethereal capture on (my T1/E1 line, SS7 links, etc.)?
-
- A: Ethereal can only capture on devices supported by libpcap/WinPcap.
- On most OSes, only devices that can act as network interfaces of the
- type that support IP are supported as capture devices for
- libpcap/WinPcap, although the device doesn't necessarily have to be
- running as an IP interface in order to support traffic capture.
-
- On Linux and FreeBSD, libpcap 0.8 and later support the API for Endace
- Measurement Systems' DAG cards, so that a system with one of those
- cards, and its driver and libraries, installed can capture traffic
- with those cards with libpcap-based applications. You would either
- have to have a version of Ethereal built with that version of libpcap,
- or a dynamically-linked version of Ethereal and a shared libpcap
- library with DAG support, in order to do so with Ethereal. You should
- ask Endace whether that could be used to capture traffic on, for
- example, your T1/E1 link.
- There is currently no hardware to support capturing on SS7 links with
- libpcap. (Note that the fact that Ethereal includes dissectors for
- many SS7 protocols doesn't imply that it can capture traffic from SS7
- links; those protocols can be run over Internet protocols.)
-
- Q 5.10: How do I put an interface into promiscuous mode?
-
- A: By not disabling promiscuous mode when running Ethereal or
- Tethereal.
-
- Note, however, that:
- * the form of promiscuous mode that libpcap (the library that
- programs such as tcpdump, Ethereal, etc. use to do packet capture)
- turns on will not necessarily be shown if you run ifconfig on the
- interface on a UNIX system;
- * some network interfaces might not support promiscuous mode, and
- some drivers might not allow promiscuous mode to be turned on -
- see this earlier question for more information on that;
- * the fact that you're not seeing any traffic, or are only seeing
- broadcast traffic, or aren't seeing any non-broadcast traffic
- other than traffic to or from the machine running Ethereal, does
- not mean that promiscuous mode isn't on - see this earlier
- question for more information on that.
-
- I.e., this is probably the same question as this earlier one; see the
- response to that question.
-
- Q 5.11: I can set a display filter just fine, but capture filters
- don't work.
-
- A: Capture filters currently use a different syntax than display
- filters. Here's the corresponding section from the ethereal(1) man
- page:
-
- "Display filters in Ethereal are very powerful; more fields are
- filterable in Ethereal than in other protocol analyzers, and the
- syntax you can use to create your filters is richer. As Ethereal
- progresses, expect more and more protocol fields to be allowed in
- display filters.
-
- Packet capturing is performed with the pcap library. The capture
- filter syntax follows the rules of the pcap library. This syntax is
- different from the display filter syntax."
-
- The capture filter syntax used by libpcap can be found in the
- tcpdump(8) man page.
-
- Q 5.12: I'm entering valid capture filters, but I still get "parse
- error" errors.
-
- A: There is a bug in some versions of libpcap/WinPcap that cause it to
- report parse errors even for valid expressions if a previous filter
- expression was invalid and got a parse error.
-
- Try exiting and restarting Ethereal; if you are using a version of
- libpcap/WinPcap with this bug, this will "erase" its memory of the
- previous parse error. If the capture filter that got the "parse error"
- now works, the earlier error with that filter was probably due to this
- bug.
-
- The bug was fixed in libpcap 0.6; 0.4[.x] and 0.5[.x] versions of
- libpcap have this bug, but 0.6[.x] and later versions don't.
-
- Versions of WinPcap prior to 2.3 are based on pre-0.6 versions of
- libpcap, and have this bug; WinPcap 2.3 is based on libpcap 0.6.2, and
- doesn't have this bug.
-
- If you are running Ethereal on a UNIX-flavored platform, run "ethereal
- -v", or select "About Ethereal..." from the "Help" menu in Ethereal,
- to see what version of libpcap it's using. If it's not 0.6 or later,
- you will need either to upgrade your OS to get a later version of
- libpcap, or will need to build and install a later version of libpcap
- from the tcpdump.org Web site and then recompile Ethereal from source
- with that later version of libpcap.
-
- If you are running Ethereal on Windows with a pre-2.3 version of
- WinPcap, you will need to un-install WinPcap and then download and
- install WinPcap 2.3.
-
- Q 5.13: I saved a filter and tried to use its name to filter the
- display, but I got an "Unexpected end of filter string" error.
-
- A: You cannot use the name of a saved display filter as a filter. To
- filter the display, you can enter a display filter expression - not
- the name of a saved display filter - in the "Filter:" box at the
- bottom of the display, and type the key or press the "Apply" button
- (that does not require you to have a saved filter), or, if you want to
- use a saved filter, you can press the "Filter:" button, select the
- filter in the dialog box that pops up, and press the "OK" button.
-
- Q 5.14: Why am I seeing lots of packets with incorrect TCP checksums?
-
- A: If the packets that have incorrect TCP checksums are all being sent
- by the machine on which Ethereal is running, this is probably because
- the network interface on which you're capturing does TCP checksum
- offloading. That means that the TCP checksum is added to the packet by
- the network interface, not by the OS's TCP/IP stack; when capturing on
- an interface, packets being sent by the host on which you're capturing
- are directly handed to the capture interface by the OS, which means
- that they are handed to the capture interface without a TCP checksum
- being added to them.
-
- The only way to prevent this from happening would be to disable TCP
- checksum offloading, but
- 1. that might not even be possible on some OSes;
- 2. that could reduce networking performance significantly.
-
- However, you can disable the check that Ethereal does of the TCP
- checksum, so that it won't report any packets as having TCP checksum
- errors, and so that it won't refuse to do TCP reassembly due to a
- packet having an incorrect TCP checksum. That can be set as an
- Ethereal preference by selecting "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu,
- opening up the "Protocols" list in the left-hand pane of the
- "Preferences" dialog box, selecting "TCP", from that list, turning off
- the "Check the validity of the TCP checksum when possible" option,
- clicking "Save" if you want to save that setting in your preference
- file, and clicking "OK".
-
- It can also be set on the Ethereal or Tethereal command line with a -o
- tcp.check_checksum:false command-line flag, or manually set in your
- preferences file by adding a tcp.check_checksum:false line.
-
- Q 5.15: I've just installed Ethereal, and the traffic on my local LAN
- is boring.
-
- A: We have a collection of strange and exotic sample capture files at
- http://wiki.ethereal.com/SampleCaptures
-
- Q 5.16: When I run Ethereal on Solaris 8, it dies with a Bus Error
- when I start it.
-
- A: Some versions of the GTK+ library from www.sunfreeware.org appear
- to be buggy, causing Ethereal to drop core with a Bus Error.
- Un-install those packages, and try getting the 1.2.10 version from
- that site, or the version from The Written Word, or the version from
- Sun's GNOME distribution, or the version from the supplemental
- software CD that comes with the Solaris media kit, or build it from
- source from the GTK Web site. Update the GLib library to the 1.2.10
- version, from the same source, as well. (If you get the 1.2.10
- versions from www.sunfreeware.org, and the problem persists,
- un-install them and try installing one of the other versions
- mentioned.)
-
- Similar problems may exist with older versions of GTK+ for earlier
- versions of Solaris.
-
- Q 5.17: When I run Ethereal, I get an error
-
- Gtk-CRITICAL **: file gtkwindow.c: line 3107 (gtk_window_resize):
- assertion `height > 0' failed.
-
- A: This is a bug in Ethereal 0.10.5 and 0.10.5a, which is fixed in
- Ethereal 0.10.6 and later releases.
-
- Q 5.18: When I run Tethereal with the "-x" option, it crashes with an
- error
-
- "** ERROR **: file print.c: line 691 (print_line): should not be
- reached.
-
- A: This is a bug in Ethereal 0.10.0a, which is fixed in 0.10.1 and
- later releases. To work around the bug, don't use "-x" unless you're
- also using "-V"; note that "-V" produces a full dissection of each
- packet, so you might not want to use it.
-
- Q 5.19: When I run Ethereal on Windows NT, it dies with a Dr. Watson
- error, reporting an "Integer division by zero" exception, when I start
- it.
-
- A: In at least some case, this appears to be due to using the default
- VGA driver; if that's not the correct driver for your video card, try
- running the correct driver for your video card.
-
- Q 5.20: When I try to run Ethereal, it complains about
- sprint_realloc_objid being undefined.
-
- A: Ethereal can only be linked with version 4.2.2 or later of UCD
- SNMP. Your version of Ethereal was dynamically linked with such a
- version of UCD SNMP; however, you have an older version of UCD SNMP
- installed, which means that when Ethereal is run, it tries to link to
- the older version, and fails. You will have to replace that version of
- UCD SNMP with version 4.2.2 or a later version.
-
- Q 5.21: I'm running Ethereal on Linux; why do my time stamps have only
- 100ms resolution, rather than 1us resolution?
-
- A: Ethereal gets time stamps from libpcap/WinPcap, and libpcap/WinPcap
- get them from the OS kernel, so Ethereal - and any other program using
- libpcap, such as tcpdump - is at the mercy of the time stamping code
- in the OS for time stamps.
-
- At least on x86-based machines, Linux can get high-resolution time
- stamps on newer processors with the Time Stamp Counter (TSC) register;
- for example, Intel x86 processors, starting with the Pentium Pro, and
- including all x86 processors since then, have had a TSC, and other
- vendors probably added the TSC at some point to their families of x86
- processors.
-
- The Linux kernel must be configured with the CONFIG_X86_TSC option
- enabled in order to use the TSC. Make sure this option is enabled in
- your kernel.
-
- In addition, some Linux distributions may have bugs in their versions
- of the kernel that cause packets not to be given high-resolution time
- stamps even if the TSC is enabled. See, for example, bug 61111 for Red
- Hat Linux 7.2. If your distribution has a bug such as this, you may
- have to run a standard kernel from kernel.org in order to get
- high-resolution time stamps.
-
- Q 5.22: I'm capturing packets on {Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me};
- why are the time stamps on packets wrong?
-
- A: This is due to a bug in WinPcap. The bug should be fixed in WinPcap
- 3.0.
-
- Q 5.23: When I try to run Ethereal on Windows, it fails to run because
- it can't find packet.dll.
-
- A: In older versions of Ethereal, there were two binary distributions
- available for Windows, one that supported capturing packets, and one
- that didn't. The version that supported capturing packets required
- that you install the WinPcap driver; if you didn't install it, it
- would fail to run because it couldn't find packet.dll.
-
- The current version of Ethereal has only one binary distribution for
- Windows; that version will check whether WinPcap is installed and, if
- it's not, will disable support for packet capture.
-
- The WinPcap driver and libraries can be downloaded from the WinPcap
- Web site, the local mirror of the WinPcap Web site, or the
- Wiretapped.net mirror of the WinPcap site.
-
- Q 5.24: I'm running Ethereal on Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows
- XP/Windows Server 2003; my machine has a PPP (dial-up POTS, ISDN,
- etc.) interface, and it shows up in the "Interface" item in the
- "Capture Options" dialog box. Why can no packets be sent on or
- received from that network while I'm trying to capture traffic on that
- interface?
-
- A: Some versions of WinPcap have problems with PPP WAN interfaces on
- Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003; one
- symptom that may be seen is that attempts to capture in promiscuous
- mode on the interface cause the interface to be incapable of sending
- or receiving packets. You can disable promiscuous mode using the -p
- command-line flag or the item in the "Capture Preferences" dialog box,
- but this may mean that outgoing packets, or incoming packets, won't be
- seen in the capture.
-
- On Windows 2000 and later, installing the beta version of WinPcap 3.1
- might help, although, as it's a beta version, that might cause some
- other problems that don't occur with older versions of WinPcap; you
- should report those problems to the WinPcap developers, so that they
- can try to fix those problems before the final version of WinPcap 3.1
- is released. WinPcap 3.1 will not support PPP captures on Windows NT
- 4.0. See the Ethereal Wiki item on PPP capturing for details.
-
- Q 5.25: I'm running Ethereal on Windows 95/98/Me, on a machine with
- more than one network adapter of the same type; Ethereal shows all of
- those adapters with the same name, but I can't use any of those
- adapters other than the first one.
-
- A: Unfortunately, Windows 95/98/Me gives the same name to multiple
- instances of the type of same network adapter. Therefore, WinPcap
- cannot distinguish between them, so a WinPcap-based application can
- capture only on the first such interface; Ethereal is a
- libpcap/WinPcap-based application.
-
- Q 5.26: I'm running Ethereal on Windows, and I'm not seeing any
- traffic being sent by the machine running Ethereal.
-
- A: If you are running some form of VPN client software, it might be
- causing this problem; people have seen this problem when they have
- Check Point's VPN software installed on their machine. If that's the
- cause of the problem, you will have to remove the VPN software in
- order to have Ethereal (or any other application using WinPcap) see
- outgoing packets; unfortunately, neither we nor the WinPcap developers
- know any way to make WinPcap and the VPN software work well together.
-
- Also, some drivers for Windows (especially some wireless network
- interface drivers) apparently do not, when running in promiscuous
- mode, arrange that outgoing packets are delivered to the software that
- requested that the interface run promiscuously; try turning
- promiscuous mode off.
-
- Q 5.27: I'm trying to capture traffic but I'm not seeing any.
-
- A: Is the machine running Ethereal sending out any traffic on the
- network interface on which you're capturing, or receiving any traffic
- on that network, or is there any broadcast traffic on the network or
- multicast traffic to a multicast group to which the machine running
- Ethereal belongs?
-
- If not, this may just be a problem with promiscuous sniffing, either
- due to running on a switched network or a dual-speed hub, or due to
- problems with the interface not supporting promiscuous mode; see the
- response to this earlier question.
-
- Otherwise, on Windows, see the response to this question and, on a
- UNIX-flavored OS, see the response to this question.
-
- Q 5.28: I have an XXX network card on my machine; if I try to capture
- on it, my machine crashes or resets itself.
-
- A: This is almost certainly a problem with one or more of:
- * the operating system you're using;
- * the device driver for the interface you're using;
- * the libpcap/WinPcap library and, if this is Windows, the WinPcap
- device driver;
-
- so:
- * if you are using Windows, see the WinPcap support page (or the
- local mirror of that page) - check the "Submitting bugs" section;
- * if you are using some Linux distribution, some version of BSD, or
- some other UNIX-flavored OS, you should report the problem to the
- company or organization that produces the OS (in the case of a
- Linux distribution, report the problem to whoever produces the
- distribution).
-
- Q 5.29: My machine crashes or resets itself when I select "Start" from
- the "Capture" menu or select "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu.
-
- A: Both of those operations cause Ethereal to try to build a list of
- the interfaces that it can open; it does so by getting a list of
- interfaces and trying to open them. There is probably an OS, driver,
- or, for Windows, WinPcap bug that causes the system to crash when this
- happens; see the previous question.
-
- Q 5.30: Does Ethereal work on Windows Me?
-
- A: Yes, but if you want to capture packets, you will need to install
- the latest version of WinPcap, as 2.02 and earlier versions of WinPcap
- didn't support Windows Me. You should also install the latest version
- of Ethereal as well.
-
- Q 5.31: Does Ethereal work on Windows XP?
-
- A: Yes, but if you want to capture packets, you will need to install
- the latest version of WinPcap, as 2.2 and earlier versions of WinPcap
- didn't support Windows XP.
-
- Q 5.32: Why doesn't Ethereal correctly identify RTP packets? It shows
- them only as UDP.
-
- A: Ethereal can identify a UDP datagram as containing a packet of a
- particular protocol running atop UDP only if
- 1. The protocol in question has a particular standard port number,
- and the UDP source or destination port number is that port
- 2. Packets of that protocol can be identified by looking for a
- "signature" of some type in the packet - i.e., some data that, if
- Ethereal finds it in some particular part of a packet, means that
- the packet is almost certainly a packet of that type.
- 3. Some other traffic earlier in the capture indicated that, for
- example, UDP traffic between two particular addresses and ports
- will be RTP traffic.
-
- RTP doesn't have a standard port number, so 1) doesn't work; it
- doesn't, as far as I know, have any "signature", so 2) doesn't work.
-
- That leaves 3). If there's RTSP traffic that sets up an RTP session,
- then, at least in some cases, the RTSP dissector will set things up so
- that subsequent RTP traffic will be identified. Currently, that's the
- only place we do that; there may be other places.
-
- However, there will always be places where Ethereal is simply
- incapable of deducing that a given UDP flow is RTP; a mechanism would
- be needed to allow the user to specify that a given conversation
- should be treated as RTP. As of Ethereal 0.8.16, such a mechanism
- exists; if you select a UDP or TCP packet, the right mouse button menu
- will have a "Decode As..." menu item, which will pop up a dialog box
- letting you specify that the source port, the destination port, or
- both the source and destination ports of the packet should be
- dissected as some particular protocol.
-
- Q 5.33: Why doesn't Ethereal show Yahoo Messenger packets in captures
- that contain Yahoo Messenger traffic?
-
- A: Ethereal only recognizes as Yahoo Messenger traffic packets to or
- from TCP port 3050 that begin with "YPNS", "YHOO", or "YMSG". TCP
- segments that start with the middle of a Yahoo Messenger packet that
- takes more than one TCP segment will not be recognized as Yahoo
- Messenger packets (even if the TCP segment also contains the beginning
- of another Yahoo Messenger packet).
-
- Q 5.34: Why do I get the error
-
- Gdk-ERROR **: Palettized display (256-colour) mode not supported on
- Windows.
- aborting....
-
- when I try to run Ethereal on Windows?
-
- A: Ethereal is built using the GTK+ toolkit, which supports most
- UNIX-flavored OSes, and also supports Windows.
-
- Windows versions of Ethereal before 0.9.14 were built with an older
- version of that toolkit, which didn't support 256-color mode on
- Windows - it required HiColor (16-bit colors) or more.
-
- Windows versions of Ethereal 0.9.14 and later are built with a version
- of that toolkit that supports 256-color mode; upgrade to the current
- version of Ethereal if you want to run on a display in 256-color mode.
-
- Q 5.35: When I capture on Windows in promiscuous mode, I can see
- packets other than those sent to or from my machine; however, those
- packets show up with a "Short Frame" indication, unlike packets to or
- from my machine. What should I do to arrange that I see those packets
- in their entirety?
-
- A: In at least some cases, this appears to be the result of PGPnet
- running on the network interface on which you're capturing; turn it
- off on that interface.
-
- Q 5.36: I'm capturing packets on a machine on a VLAN; why don't the
- packets I'm capturing have VLAN tags?
-
- A: You might be capturing on what might be called a "VLAN interface" -
- the way a particular OS makes VLANs plug into the networking stack
- might, for example, be to have a network device object for the
- physical interface, which takes VLAN packets, strips off the VLAN
- header and constructs an Ethernet header, and passes that packet to an
- internal network device object for the VLAN, which then passes the
- packets onto various higher-level protocol implementations.
-
- In order to see the raw Ethernet packets, rather than "de-VLANized"
- packets, you would have to capture not on the virtual interface for
- the VLAN, but on the interface corresponding to the physical network
- device, if possible. See the Ethereal Wiki item on VLAN capturing for
- details.
-
- Q 5.37: How can I capture raw 802.11 packets, including non-data
- (management, beacon) packets?
-
- A: That depends on the operating system on which you're running, and
- on the 802.11 interface on which you're capturing.
-
- This would probably require that you capture in promiscuous mode or in
- the mode called "monitor mode" or "RFMON mode". On some platforms, or
- with some cards, this might require that you capture in monitor mode -
- promiscuous mode might not be sufficient. If you want to capture
- traffic on networks other than the one with which you're associated,
- you will have to capture in monitor mode.
-
- Not all operating systems support capturing non-data packets and, even
- on operating systems that do support it, not all drivers, and thus not
- all interfaces, support it. Even on those that do, monitor mode might
- not be supported by the operating system or by the drivers for all
- interfaces.
-
- NOTE: an interface running in monitor mode will, on most if not all
- platforms, not be able to act as a regular network interface; putting
- it into monitor mode will, in effect, take your machine off of
- whatever network it's on as long as the interface is in monitor mode,
- allowing it only to passively capture packets.
-
- This means that you should disable name resolution when capturing in
- monitor mode; otherwise, when Ethereal (or Tethereal, or tcpdump)
- tries to display IP addresses as host names, it will probably block
- for a long time trying to resolve the name because it will not be able
- to communicate with any DNS or NIS servers.
-
- There are FAQ items below with information on capturing in monitor
- mode on Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD.
-
- On Windows, you will not be able to capture in monitor mode on any
- interfaces, and you might not be able to capture in promiscuous mode,
- either. You might have some success in promiscuous mode with Centrino
- interfaces, although you will need Ethereal 0.10.6 or later in order
- to have the non-data packets recognized and properly dissected.
-
- You will not be able to capture in monitor mode on any other platforms
- (including Mac OS X). You might be able to capture in promiscuous
- mode, but this won't capture non-data packets.
-
- Q 5.38: How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode on Linux?
-
- A: Whether you will be able to capture in monitor mode depends on the
- card and driver you're using. See this page of Linux 802.11b
- information for details on 802.11b wireless cards, including
- information on the chips they use, and see this page of Linux
- 802.11b+/a/g information for details on 802.11b+, 802.11a, and 802.11g
- wireless cards, including information on the chips they use.
-
- Cisco Aironet cards:
-
- On Linux with the driver in the 2.4.6 through 2.4.19 kernel:
- 1. Put the card into monitor mode with the command echo "Mode: rfmon"
- >/proc/driver/aironet/interface/Config. If you want to capture
- traffic for any BSS rather than just the BSS with which the card
- is associated, use "Mode: y" rather than "Mode: rfmon".
- 2. When the capture completes, turn off monitor mode with the command
- echo "Mode: ess" >/proc/driver/aironet/interface/Config.
-
- On Linux with the driver in the 2.4.20 or later kernel, or with the
- CVS drivers from the airo-linux SourceForge site, you will have to
- capture on the wifiN interface if your Aironet card is ethN, after
- running the commands listed above.
-
- In all of those cases, Ethereal would have to be linked with libpcap
- 0.7.1 or later; this means that most Ethereal binary packages won't
- work unless they're statically linked with libpcap 0.7.1 or later, or
- they're dynamically linked with libpcap and your system has a libpcap
- 0.7.1 or later shared library installed (note that libpcap source
- package from tcpdump.org does not build shared libraries). Some binary
- packaging mechanisms might make it difficult to install Ethereal
- binary packages built to depend on older libpcap binary packages if
- you have a newer libpcap binary package installed; the installer
- programs for those packaging mechanisms might support disabling
- dependency checking so that they will install Ethereal even though a
- newer version of libpcap is installed.
-
- Cards using the Prism II chip set:
-
- You can capture raw 802.11 packets with Prism II cards on Linux
- systems with the 0.1.14-pre6 or later version of the linux-wlan-ng
- drivers (see the linux-wlan page, and the linux-wlan-ng tarball
- directory), or with the hostap driver for Prism II/2.5/3.
-
- Those require either Solomon Peachy's patch to libpcap 0.7.1 (see his
- libpcap-0.7.1-prism.diff file, or his RPMs of that version of
- libpcap), or the current CVS version of libpcap, which includes his
- patch (download it from the "Current Tar files" section of the
- tcpdump.org Web site). If you apply his patches to libpcap 0.7.1 and
- rebuild and install libpcap, or if you build and install the current
- CVS version of libpcap, you would have to rebuild Ethereal from
- source, linking it with that new version of libpcap; an Ethereal
- binary package would not work. Ethereal binary packages might work if
- you install the libpcap-0.7.1-1prism.i386.rpm RPM, as it might install
- a libpcap shared library in place of the one on your system.
-
- With the linux-wlan-ng driver, you should:
- 1. Put the card into monitor mode with the command wlanctl-ng
- interface lnxreq_wlansniffer enable=true. You should request
- 802.11 headers by adding to that command the option
- prismheader=true or, if supported, wlanheader=true; the latter
- might require libpcap 0.8.1 or later. You can also set the channel
- to monitor by adding the argument channel=channel_number to that
- command.
- 2. When the capture completes, turn off monitor mode with the command
- wlanctl-ng interface enable=false. You might also have to turn
- 802.11 headers off with prismheader=false or wlanheader=false.
-
- See the wlan-ng FAQ for additional information, although note that it
- does not appear to be up-to-date.
-
- With the hostap driver, you should:
- 1. Put the card into monitor mode with the command iwpriv interface
- monitor mode, where mode is 2 or 3 (mode 3 would require libpcap
- 0.8.1 or later).
- 2. When the capture completes, turn off monitor mode with the command
- iwpriv interface monitor 0.
-
- Orinoco Silver and Gold cards:
-
- On Linux systems, the current version of the SourceForge orinoco_cs
- driver should support monitor mode. There also exist patches to
- earlier versions of the Orinoco driver, on the Orinoco Monitor Mode
- Patch Page, to add support for monitor mode. You will have to
- determine which version of the driver you have, and select the
- appropriate patch, if one is necessary.
-
- Note that the page indicates that not all versions of the Orinoco
- firmware support this patch. It says, for some versions of the patch,
- "This patch should allow monitor mode with v8.10 firmware (untested w/
- 8.42);" if you have version 8.10 or later firmware on your Orinoco
- cards, you might have to use those patches, with the corresponding
- versions of the Orinoco driver, in order to run in monitor mode.
-
- That patch is written for the drivers included with the pcmcia-cs
- drivers, but works equally well for the Orinoco drivers provided with
- Linux kernels up to 2.4.20. To apply a patch to your kernel drivers,
- simply copy the orinoco-09b-patch.diff file to the
- /usr/src/linux/drivers/net directory and patch according to the
- directions on the Orinoco Monitor Mode Patch Page. You can double-
- check the version of the Orinoco drivers that shipped with your kernel
- by examining the first few lines of the orinoco.c file.
-
- The Orinoco patches and SourceForge driver require either Solomon
- Peachy's patch to libpcap 0.7.1 (see his libpcap-0.7.1-prism.diff
- file, or his RPMs of that version of libpcap), or the current CVS
- version of libpcap, which includes his patch (download it from the
- "Current Tar files" section of the tcpdump.org Web site). If you apply
- his patches to libpcap 0.7.1 and rebuild and install libpcap, or if
- you build and install the current CVS version of libpcap, you would
- have to rebuild Ethereal from source, linking it with that new version
- of libpcap; an Ethereal binary package would not work. Ethereal binary
- packages might work if you install the libpcap-0.7.1-1prism.i386.rpm
- RPM, as it might install a libpcap shared library in place of the one
- on your system.
-
- With a driver that supports monitor mode, you should:
- 1. Put the card into monitor mode with the command iwpriv interface
- monitor mode channel_number, where mode is 1 or 2, and
- channel_number is the number of the channel to monitor.
- 2. When the capture completes, turn off monitor mode with the command
- iwpriv interface monitor 0.
-
- Cards with the Texas Instruments ACX100 chipset:
-
- You can capture raw 802.11 packets with ACX100 cards on Linux systems
- with the ACX100 OSS drivers available from the ACX100 wireless network
- driver project SourceForge site.
-
- With that driver:
-
- 1. Put the card into monitor mode with the command iwpriv interface
- monitor 2 channel_number, where channel_number is the number of
- the channel to monitor.
- 2. When the capture completes, turn off monitor mode with the command
- iwpriv interface monitor 0.
-
- Cards with Atheros Communications chipsets:
-
- You can capture raw 802.11 packets with AR5K cards on Linux systems
- with the v5_ar5k or madwifi drivers. For the v5ar5k driver you will
- need the Linux wireless-tools version 25 or higher to put the card
- into monitor mode. If you're using the madwifi driver, you can put the
- card into monitor mode using iwconfig interface mode monitor, followed
- by iwconfig interface channel channel to select a channel (if needed).
-
- Other cards:
-
- It might be possible to capture in monitor mode on other cards. If so,
- please supply us with information on how to do so, so that we can
- incorporate that information into this FAQ in the future.
-
- Q 5.39: How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode on
- FreeBSD?
-
- A: On FreeBSD 5.2 and later, you should be able to capture in monitor
- mode on 802.11 interfaces supported by the wi and acx drivers, if
- Ethereal is linked with libpcap 0.8.1 or later, and on 802.11
- interfaces supported by the an driver, if Ethereal is linked with
- libpcap 0.7.1 or later.
-
- For cards supported by the wi and acx drivers, you should:
- 1. Put the card into monitor mode with the command ifconfig interface
- monitor. You can also set the channel to monitor by adding the
- argument channel channel_number to that command.
- 2. When you start the capture, in Ethereal select "802.11" as the
- "Link-layer header type", and in Tethereal add the command-line
- argument -y 802.11.
- 3. When the capture completes, turn off monitor mode with the command
- ifconfig interface -monitor.
-
- For cards supported by the an driver, you should:
- 1. Put the card into monitor mode with the command ancontrol -i
- interface -M flag, where flag should be the sum of:
- + 1, to turn monitor mode on;
- + 2, if you want to capture traffic from any BSS rather than
- just the BSS with which the card is associated;
- + 4, if you want to see beacon packets (capturing beacon
- packets increases the CPU requirements of capturing).
- 2. When the capture completes, turn off monitor mode with the command
- ancontrol -i interface -M 0.
-
- Don't add 8 in to flag; Ethereal currently doesn't support the full
- Aironet header.
-
- On FreeBSD 4.6 through 5.1, you should be able to capture in monitor
- mode on 802.11 interfaces supported by the an driver, but not on any
- other interfaces; see the instructions for FreeBSD 5.2 or later for
- those cards.
-
- In FreeBSD 4.5 and earlier, you will not be able to capture in monitor
- mode on 802.11 interfaces (no drivers supported it prior to 4.5, and
- in 4.5 the an driver had bugs that caused packets not to be captured
- correctly).
-
- Q 5.40: How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode on
- NetBSD?
-
- A: On NetBSD 2.0-beta and later, you should be able to capture in
- monitor mode on 802.11 interfaces supported by the wi and acx drivers,
- if Ethereal is linked with libpcap 0.8.1 or later. The instructions
- are the same as for FreeBSD 5.2 and later.
-
- Q 5.41: I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I not
- seeing any packets?
-
- A: At least some 802.11 card drivers on Windows appear not to see any
- packets if they're running in promiscuous mode. Try turning
- promiscuous mode off; you'll only be able to see packets sent by and
- received by your machine, not third-party traffic, and it'll look like
- Ethernet traffic and won't include any management or control frames,
- but that's a limitation of the card drivers.
-
- Q 5.42: I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I
- seeing packets received by the machine on which I'm capturing traffic,
- but not packets sent by that machine?
-
- A: This appears to be another problem with promiscuous mode; try
- turning it off.
-
- Q 5.43: How can I capture packets with CRC errors?
-
- A: Ethereal can capture only the packets that the packet capture
- library - libpcap on UNIX-flavored OSes, and the WinPcap port to
- Windows of libpcap on Windows - can capture, and libpcap/WinPcap can
- capture only the packets that the OS's raw packet capture mechanism
- (or the WinPcap driver, and the underlying OS networking code and
- network interface drivers, on Windows) will allow it to capture.
-
- Unless the OS always supplies packets with errors such as invalid CRCs
- to the raw packet capture mechanism, or can be configured to do so,
- invalid CRCs to the raw packet capture mechanism, Ethereal - and other
- programs that capture raw packets, such as tcpdump - cannot capture
- those packets. You will have to determine whether your OS needs to be
- so configured and, if so, can be so configured, configure it if
- necessary and possible, and make whatever changes to libpcap and the
- packet capture program you're using are necessary, if any, to support
- capturing those packets.
-
- Most OSes probably do not support capturing packets with invalid CRCs
- on Ethernet, and probably do not support it on most other link-layer
- types. Some drivers on some OSes do support it, such as some Ethernet
- drivers on FreeBSD; in those OSes, you might always get those packets,
- or you might only get them if you capture in promiscuous mode (you'd
- have to determine which is the case).
-
- Note that libpcap does not currently supply to programs that use it an
- indication of whether the packet's CRC was invalid (because the
- drivers themselves do not supply that information to the raw packet
- capture mechanism); therefore, Ethereal will not indicate which
- packets had CRC errors unless the FCS was captured (see the next
- question) and you're using Ethereal 0.9.15 and later, in which case
- Ethereal will check the CRC and indicate whether it's correct or not.
-
- Q 5.44: How can I capture entire frames, including the FCS?
-
- A: Ethereal can only capture data that the packet capture library -
- libpcap on UNIX-flavored OSes, and the WinPcap port to Windows of
- libpcap on Windows - can capture, and libpcap/WinPcap can capture only
- the data that the OS's raw packet capture mechanism (or the WinPcap
- driver, and the underlying OS networking code and network interface
- drivers, on Windows) will allow it to capture.
-
- For any particular link-layer network type, unless the OS supplies the
- FCS of a frame as part of the frame, or can be configured to do so,
- Ethereal - and other programs that capture raw packets, such as
- tcpdump - cannot capture the FCS of a frame. You will have to
- determine whether your OS needs to be so configured and, if so, can be
- so configured, configure it if necessary and possible, and make
- whatever changes to libpcap and the packet capture program you're
- using are necessary, if any, to support capturing the FCS of a frame.
-
- Most OSes do not support capturing the FCS of a frame on Ethernet, and
- probably do not support it on most other link-layer types. Some
- drivres on some OSes do support it, such as some (all?) Ethernet
- drivers on NetBSD and possibly the driver for Apple's gigabit Ethernet
- interface in Mac OS X; in those OSes, you might always get the FCS, or
- you might only get the FCS if you capture in promiscuous mode (you'd
- have to determine which is the case).
-
- Versions of Ethereal prior to 0.9.15 will not treat an Ethernet FCS in
- a captured packet as an FCS. 0.9.15 and later will attempt to
- determine whether there's an FCS at the end of the frame and, if it
- thinks there is, will display it as such, and will check whether it's
- the correct CRC-32 value or not.
-
- Q 5.45: Why does Ethereal hang after I stop a capture?
-
- A: The most likely reason for this is that Ethereal is trying to look
- up an IP address in the capture to convert it to a name (so that, for
- example, it can display the name in the source address or destination
- address columns), and that lookup process is taking a very long time.
-
- Ethereal calls a routine in the OS of the machine on which it's
- running to convert of IP addresses to the corresponding names. That
- routine probably does one or more of:
- * a search of a system file listing IP addresses and names;
- * a lookup using DNS;
- * on UNIX systems, a lookup using NIS;
- * on Windows systems, a NetBIOS-over-TCP query.
-
- If a DNS server that's used in an address lookup is not responding,
- the lookup will fail, but will only fail after a timeout while the
- system routine waits for a reply.
-
- In addition, on Windows systems, if the DNS lookup of the address
- fails, either because the server isn't responding or because there are
- no records in the DNS that could be used to map the address to a name,
- a NetBIOS-over-TCP query will be made. That query involves sending a
- message to the NetBIOS-over-TCP name service on that machine, asking
- for the name and other information about the machine. If the machine
- isn't running software that responds to those queries - for example,
- many non-Windows machines wouldn't be running that software - the
- lookup will only fail after a timeout. Those timeouts can cause the
- lookup to take a long time.
-
- If you disable network address-to-name translation - for example, by
- turning off the "Enable network name resolution" option in the
- "Capture Options" dialog box for starting a network capture - the
- lookups of the address won't be done, which may speed up the process
- of reading the capture file after the capture is stopped. You can make
- that setting the default by selecting "Preferences" from the "Edit"
- menu, turning off the "Enable network name resolution" option in the
- "Name resolution" options in the preferences disalog box, and using
- the "Save" button in that dialog box; note that this will save all
- your current preference settings.
-
- If Ethereal hangs when reading a capture even with network name
- resolution turned off, there might, for example, be a bug in one of
- Ethereal's dissectors for a protocol causing it to loop infinitely. If
- you're not running the most recent release of Ethereal, you should
- first upgrade to that release, as, if there's a bug of that sort, it
- might've been fixed in a release after the one you're running. If the
- hang occurs in the most recent release of Ethereal, the bug should be
- reported to the Ethereal developers' mailing list at
- ethereal-dev@ethereal.com.
-
- On UNIX-flavored OSes, please try to force Ethereal to dump core, by
- sending it a SIGABRT signal (usually signal 6) with the kill command,
- and then get a stack trace if you have a debugger installed. A stack
- trace can be obtained by using your debugger (gdb in this example),
- the Ethereal binary, and the resulting core file. Here's an example of
- how to use the gdb command backtrace to do so.
- $ gdb ethereal core
- (gdb) backtrace
- ..... prints the stack trace
- (gdb) quit
- $
-
- The core dump file may be named "ethereal.core" rather than "core" on
- some platforms (e.g., BSD systems).
-
- Also, if at all possible, please send a copy of the capture file that
- caused the problem; when capturing packets, Ethereal normally writes
- captured packets to a temporary file, which will probably be in /tmp
- or /var/tmp on UNIX-flavored OSes, \TEMP on the main system disk
- (normally C:) on Windows 9x/Me/NT 4.0, and \Documents and
- Settings\your login name\Local Settings\Temp on the main system disk
- on Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003, so the capture file
- will probably be there. It will have a name beginning with ether, with
- some mixture of letters and numbers after that. Please don't send a
- trace file greater than 1 MB when compressed; instead, make it
- available via FTP or HTTP, or say it's available but leave it up to a
- developer to ask for it. If the trace file contains sensitive
- information (e.g., passwords), then please do not send it.
-
- Q 5.46: How can I search for, or filter, packets that have a
- particular string anywhere in them?
-
- A: If you want to do this when capturing, you can't. That's a feature
- that would be hard to implement in capture filters without changes to
- the capture filter code, which, on many platforms, is in the OS kernel
- and, on other platforms, is in the libpcap library.
-
- In releases prior to 0.9.14, you also can't search for, or filter,
- packets containing a particular string even after you've captured
- them.
-
- In 0.9.14, you can search for, but not filter, packets that have a
- particular string; this has been added to the "Find Frame" dialog
- ("Find Frame" under the "Edit" menu, or control-F).
-
- In 0.9.15 and later, you can search for those packets using either the
- mechanism introduced in 0.9.14 or using the new "contains" operator in
- filter expressions, which lets you search the entire packet or text
- string or byte string fields in the packet; the "contains" operator
- can also be used in expressions used to filter the display.
-
- Q 5.47: How do I filter a capture to see traffic for virus XXX?
-
- A: For some viruses/worms there might be a capture filter to recognize
- the virus traffic. Check the CaptureFilters page on the Ethereal Wiki
- to see if anybody's added such a filter.
-
- Note that Ethereal was not designed to be an intrusion detection
- system; you might be able to use it as an IDS, but in most cases
- software designed to be an IDS, such as Snort or Prelude, will
- probably work better.
-
- The Bleeding Edge of Snort has a collection of signatures for Snort to
- detect various viruses, worms, and the like.
-
- Please send support questions about Ethereal to the
- ethereal-users[AT]ethereal.com mailing list.
- For corrections/additions/suggestions for this web page (and not
- Ethereal support questions), please send email to
- ethereal-web[AT]ethereal.com .
- Last modified: Sun, February 27 2005.
-