-$Id: README,v 1.53 2002/01/22 22:38:02 guy Exp $
-
General Information
------- -----------
-Ethereal is a network traffic analyzer, or "sniffer", for Unix and
+Wireshark is a network traffic analyzer, or "sniffer", for Unix and
Unix-like operating systems. It uses GTK+, a graphical user interface
library, and libpcap, a packet capture and filtering library.
-The Ethereal distribution also comes with Tethereal, which is a
+The Wireshark distribution also comes with TShark, which is a
line-oriented sniffer (similar to Sun's snoop, or tcpdump) that uses the
same dissection, capture-file reading and writing, and packet filtering
-code as Ethereal, and with editcap, which is a program to read capture
+code as Wireshark, and with editcap, which is a program to read capture
files and write the packets from that capture file, possibly in a
different capture file format, and with some packets possibly removed
from the capture.
-The official home of Ethereal is
+The official home of Wireshark is
- http://www.ethereal.com
+ http://www.wireshark.org
The latest distribution can be found in the subdirectory
- http://www.ethereal.com/distribution
+ http://www.wireshark.org/download
Installation
------------
-Ethereal is known to compile and run on the following systems:
+Wireshark is known to compile and run on the following systems:
- - Linux (2.0.x, 2.1.x, 2.2.x, 2.3.x, 2.4.x)
- - Solaris (2.5.1, 2.6, 7)
- - FreeBSD (2.2.5, 2.2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3)
+ - Linux (2.0 and later kernels, various distributions)
+ - Solaris (2.5.1 and later)
+ - FreeBSD (2.2.5 and later)
+ - NetBSD
+ - OpenBSD
+ - Mac OS X (10.2 and later)
+ - HP-UX (10.20, 11.00, 11.11)
- Sequent PTX v4.4.5 (Nick Williams <njw@sequent.com>)
- - Tru64 UNIX (formerly Digital UNIX) (3.2, 4.0)
+ - Tru64 UNIX (formerly Digital UNIX) (3.2 and later)
- Irix (6.5)
- AIX (4.3.2, with a bit of work)
- - Win32 (NT, 98)
+ - Windows (2003, XP, Vista, 7)
+
+and possibly on other versions of those OSes. It should run on other
+Unix-ish systems without too much trouble.
-It should run on other Unix-ish systems without too much trouble.
+If you have an older version of the operating systems listed above, it
+might be supported by an older version of Wireshark. In particular,
+Windows 2000 is supported by Wireshark 1.2.x, Windows NT 4.0 is supported by
+Wireshark 0.99.4, and Windows 95, 98, and ME are supported by Ethereal 0.99.0.
NOTE: the Makefile appears to depend on GNU "make"; it doesn't appear to
work with the "make" that comes with Solaris 7 nor the BSD "make".
-Perl is also needed to create the man page.
+
+Both Perl and Python are needed, the former for building the man pages.
If you decide to modify the yacc grammar or lex scanner, then
you need "flex" - it cannot be built with vanilla "lex" -
and either "bison" or the Berkeley "yacc". Your flex
version must be 2.5.1 or greater. Check this with 'flex -V'.
-If you decide to modify the NetWare Core Protocol dissector, you
-will need python, as the data for packet types is stored in a python
-script, ncp2222.py.
-
-You must therefore install Perl, GNU "make", "flex", and either "bison" or
-Berkeley "yacc" on systems that lack them.
+You must therefore install Perl, Python, GNU "make", "flex", and either "bison"
+or Berkeley "yacc" on systems that lack them.
Full installation instructions can be found in the INSTALL file.
-
+
See also the appropriate README.<OS> files for OS-specific installation
instructions.
Usage
------
-
-In order to capture packets from the network, you need to be running as
-root, or have access to the appropriate entry under /dev if your system
-is so inclined (BSD-derived systems, and systems such as Solaris and
-HP-UX that support DLPI, typically fall into this category). Although
-it might be tempting to make the Ethereal executable setuid root, please
-don't - alpha code is by nature not very robust, and liable to contain
-security holes.
+-----
+
+In order to capture packets from the network, you need to make the
+dumpcap program set-UID to root, or you need to have access to the
+appropriate entry under /dev if your system is so inclined (BSD-derived
+systems, and systems such as Solaris and HP-UX that support DLPI,
+typically fall into this category). Although it might be tempting to
+make the Wireshark and TShark executables setuid root, or to run them as
+root please don't. The capture process has been isolated in dumpcap;
+this simple program is less likely to contain security holes, and thus
+safer to run as root.
Please consult the man page for a description of each command-line
option and interface feature.
-------------------
The wiretap library is a packet-capture library currently under
-development parallel to ethereal. In the future it is hoped that
+development parallel to wireshark. In the future it is hoped that
wiretap will have more features than libpcap, but wiretap is still in
-its infancy. However, wiretap is used in ethereal for its ability
-to read multiple file types. You can read the following file
-formats:
-
-libpcap (tcpdump -w, etc.) - this is Ethereal's native format
-snoop and atmsnoop
-Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor
-Novell LANalyzer
-Network General/Network Associates DOS-based Sniffer (compressed and
- uncompressed)
-Microsoft Network Monitor
-AIX's iptrace
-Cinco Networks NetXRray
-Network Associates Windows-based Sniffer
-AG Group/WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek
-RADCOM's WAN/LAN Analyzer
-Lucent/Ascend access products
-HP-UX's nettl
-Toshiba's ISDN routers
-ISDN4BSD "i4btrace" utility
-Cisco Secure Intrustion Detection System iplogging facility
-pppd logs (pppdump-format files)
-VMS's TCPIPtrace utility
-DBS Etherwatch for VMS
-Traffic captures from Visual Networks' Visual UpTime
-
-In addition, it can read gzipped versions of any of these files
+its infancy. However, wiretap is used in wireshark for its ability
+to read multiple file types. See the Wireshark man page or the
+Wireshark User's Guide for a list of supported file formats.
+
+In addition, it can read gzipped versions of any of those files
automatically, if you have the zlib library available when compiling
-Ethereal. Ethereal needs a modern version of zlib to be able to use
+Wireshark. Wireshark needs a modern version of zlib to be able to use
zlib to read gzipped files; version 1.1.3 is known to work. Versions
-prior to 1.0.9 are missing some functions that Ethereal needs and won't
+prior to 1.0.9 are missing some functions that Wireshark needs and won't
work. "./configure" should detect if you have the proper zlib version
available and, if you don't, should disable zlib support. You can always
use "./configure --disable-zlib" to explicitly disable zlib support.
-Although Ethereal can read AIX iptrace files, the documentation on
+Although Wireshark can read AIX iptrace files, the documentation on
AIX's iptrace packet-trace command is sparse. The 'iptrace' command
starts a daemon which you must kill in order to stop the trace. Through
experimentation it appears that sending a HUP signal to that iptrace
daemon causes a graceful shutdown and a complete packet is written
-to the trace file. If a partial packet is saved at the end, Ethereal
+to the trace file. If a partial packet is saved at the end, Wireshark
will complain when reading that file, but you will be able to read all
-other packets. If this occurs, please let the Ethereal developers know
-at ethereal-dev@ethereal.com, and be sure to send us a copy of that trace
+other packets. If this occurs, please let the Wireshark developers know
+at wireshark-dev@wireshark.org, and be sure to send us a copy of that trace
file if it's small and contains non-sensitive data.
Support for Lucent/Ascend products is limited to the debug trace output
-generated by the MAX and Pipline series of products. Ethereal can read
+generated by the MAX and Pipline series of products. Wireshark can read
the output of the "wandsession" "wandisplay", "wannext", and "wdd"
-commands. For detailed information on use of these commands, please refer
-the following pages:
-
-"wandsession", "wandisplay", and "wannext" on the Pipeline series:
- http://aos.ascend.com/aos:/gennavviewer.html?doc_id=0900253d80006c79
-
-"wandsession", "wandisplay", and "wannext" on the MAX series:
- http://aos.ascend.com/aos:/gennavviewer.html?doc_id=0900253d80006972
+commands.
-"wdd" on the Pipeline series:
- http://aos.ascend.com/aos:/gennavviewer.html?doc_id=0900253d80006877
-
-Ethereal can also read dump trace output from the Toshiba "Compact Router"
+Wireshark can also read dump trace output from the Toshiba "Compact Router"
line of ISDN routers (TR-600 and TR-650). You can telnet to the router
and start a dump session with "snoop dump".
-To use the Lucent/Ascend and Toshiba traces with Ethereal, you must capture
-the trace output to a file on disk. The trace is happening inside the router
-and the router has no way of saving the trace to a file for you.
+CoSine L2 debug output can also be read by Wireshark. To get the L2
+debug output, get in the diags mode first and then use
+"create-pkt-log-profile" and "apply-pkt-log-profile" commands under
+layer-2 category. For more detail how to use these commands, you
+should examine the help command by "layer-2 create ?" or "layer-2 apply ?".
+
+To use the Lucent/Ascend, Toshiba and CoSine traces with Wireshark, you must
+capture the trace output to a file on disk. The trace is happening inside
+the router and the router has no way of saving the trace to a file for you.
An easy way of doing this under Unix is to run "telnet <ascend> | tee <outfile>".
Or, if your system has the "script" command installed, you can save
a shell session, including telnet to a file. For example, to a file named
IPv6
----
-If your operating system includes IPv6 support, ethereal will attempt to
-use reverse name resolution capabilities when decoding IPv6 packets. If
-you want to turn off name resolution while using ethereal, start ethereal
-with the "-n" option. If you would like to compile ethereal without
-support for IPv6 name resolution, use the "--disable-ipv6" option with
-"./configure". If you compile ethereal without IPv6 name resolution,
-you will still be able to decode IPv6 packets, but you'll only see IPv6
-addresses, not host names.
+If your operating system includes IPv6 support, wireshark will attempt to
+use reverse name resolution capabilities when decoding IPv6 packets.
+
+If you want to turn off name resolution while using wireshark, start
+wireshark with the "-n" option to turn off all name resolution (including
+resolution of MAC addresses and TCP/UDP/SMTP port numbers to names), or
+with the "-N mt" option to turn off name resolution for all
+network-layer addresses (IPv4, IPv6, IPX).
+You can make that the default setting by opening the Preferences dialog
+box using the Preferences item in the Edit menu, selecting "Name
+resolution", turning off the appropriate name resolution options,
+clicking "Save", and clicking "OK".
-NetWare Core Protocol
----------------------
-There are over 400 different NCP packet types. The NCP dissector does
-not understand all of these; support is being added little by little. If
-you have some NCP packets that are not dissected by Ethereal, send
-a trace file to ethereal-dev@ethereal.com and if possible, we will add support
-for those packets types.
+If you would like to compile wireshark without support for IPv6 name
+resolution, use the "--disable-ipv6" option with "./configure". If you
+compile wireshark without IPv6 name resolution, you will still be able to
+decode IPv6 packets, but you'll only see IPv6 addresses, not host names.
SNMP
----
-Ethereal can do some basic decoding of SNMP packets; it can also use an
-external SNMP library to do more sophisticated decoding.. The configure
-script will automatically determine which library you have on your
-system and will use it. If you have an SNMP library but _do not_ want
-to have ethereal use it, you can run configure with the "--disable-snmp"
-option.
-
+Wireshark can do some basic decoding of SNMP packets; it can also use
+the libsmi library to do more sophisticated decoding, by reading MIB
+files and using the information in those files to display OIDs and
+variable binding values in a friendlier fashion. The configure script
+will automatically determine whether you have the libsmi library on
+your system. If you have the libsmi library but _do not_ want to have
+Wireshark use it, you can run configure with the "--without-libsmi"
+option.
How to Report a Bug
-------------------
-Ethereal is still under constant development, so it is possible that you will
-encounter a bug while using it. Please report bugs to ethereal-dev@ethereal.com.
-Be sure you tell us:
-
- 1) Operating System and version (the command 'uname -sr' may
- tell you this, although on Linux systems it will probably
- tell you only the version number of the Linux kernel, not of
- the distribution as a whole; on Linux systems, please tell us
- both the version number of the kernel, and which version of
- which distribution you're running)
- 2) Version of GTK+ (the command 'gtk-config --version' will tell you)
- 3) Version of Ethereal (the command 'ethereal -v' will tell you,
- unless the bug is so severe as to prevent that from working,
- and should also tell you the versions of libraries with which
- it was built)
- 4) The command you used to invoke Ethereal, and the sequence of
- operations you performed that caused the bug to appear
-
-If the bug is produced by a particular trace file, please be sure to send
-a trace file along with your bug description. Please don't send a trace file
-greater than 1 MB when compressed. If the trace file contains sensitive
-information (e.g., passwords), then please do not send it.
-
-If Ethereal died on you with a 'segmentation violation', 'bus error',
+Wireshark is still under constant development, so it is possible that you will
+encounter a bug while using it. Please report bugs at http://bugs.wireshark.org.
+Be sure you enter into the bug:
+
+ 1) the complete build information from the "About Wireshark"
+ item in the Help menu or the output of "wireshark -v" for
+ Wireshark bugs and the output of "tshark -v" for TShark bugs;
+
+ 2) if the bug happened on Linux, the Linux distribution you were
+ using, and the version of that distribution;
+
+ 3) the command you used to invoke Wireshark, if you ran
+ Wireshark from the command line, or TShark, if you ran
+ TShark, and the sequence of operations you performed that
+ caused the bug to appear.
+
+If the bug is produced by a particular trace file, please be sure to
+attach to the bug a trace file along with your bug description. If the
+trace file contains sensitive information (e.g., passwords), then please
+do not send it.
+
+If Wireshark died on you with a 'segmentation violation', 'bus error',
'abort', or other error that produces a UNIX core dump file, you can
help the developers a lot 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
+the wireshark 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 wireshark core
(gdb) backtrace
..... prints the stack trace
(gdb) quit
$
-The core dump file may be named "ethereal.core" rather than "core" on
+The core dump file may be named "wireshark.core" rather than "core" on
some platforms (e.g., BSD systems). If you got a core dump with
-Tethereal rather than Ethereal, use "tethereal" as the first argument to
-the debugger; the core dump may be named "tethereal.core".
+TShark rather than Wireshark, use "tshark" as the first argument to
+the debugger; the core dump may be named "tshark.core".
Disclaimer
----------
Use at your own risk.
-Gerald Combs <gerald@ethereal.com>
+Gerald Combs <gerald@wireshark.org>
Gilbert Ramirez <gram@alumni.rice.edu>
Guy Harris <guy@alum.mit.edu>
git.samba.org / metze / wireshark / wip.git / blobdiff