-$Id: README,v 1.10 1999/02/20 08:12:20 guy Exp $
+NOTE: this documents the original intent behind libwiretap. Currently,
+it is being developed solely as a library for reading capture files,
+rather than packet capture. The list of file formats is also
+out-of-date.
Wiretap is a library that is being developed as a future replacement for
-libpcap, the current standard Unix library for packet capturing. Libpcap is
-great in that it is very platform independent and has a wonderful BPF
-optimizing engine. But it has some shortcomings as well. These shortcomings
-came to a head during the development of Ethereal (http://ethereal.zing.org),
-a packet analyzer. As such, I began developing wiretap so that:
+libpcap, the current standard Unix library for packet capturing. Libpcap
+is great in that it is very platform independent and has a wonderful
+BPF optimizing engine. But it has some shortcomings as well. These
+shortcomings came to a head during the development of Wireshark
+(http://www.wireshark.org/), a packet analyzer. As such, I began developing
+wiretap so that:
1. The library can easily be amended with new packet filtering objects.
Libpcap is very TCP/IP-oriented. I want to filter on IPX objects, SNA objects,
6. The packet-filter can be optimized for the host OS. Not all OSes have BPF;
SunOS has NIT and Solaris has DLPI, which both use the CMU/Stanford
-packet-filter psuedomachine. RMON has another type of packet-filter syntax
+packet-filter pseudomachine. RMON has another type of packet-filter syntax
which we could support.
-Currently, only #2 is available. Wiretap doesn't even do any filtering yet. It
-can only be used to read packet capture files.
+Wiretap is very good at reading many file formats, as per #2
+above. Wiretap has no filter capability at present; it currently doesn't
+support packet capture, so it wouldn't be useful there, and filtering
+when reading a capture file is done by Wireshark, using a more powerful
+filtering mechanism than that provided by BPF.
+
File Formats
============
wiretap reads the "libpcap" file format with its own code, rather than
using the "libpcap" library's code to read it.
-Sniffer (uncompressed)
+Sniffer (compressed and uncompressed)
-------
-The Sniffer format is documented in the Sniffer manual. Unfortunately,
-Sniffer manuals tend to document only the format for the Sniffer model
-they document. Token-Ring and ethernet seems to work well, though.
-If you have an ATM Sniffer file, both Guy and I would be *very*
-interested in receiving a sample. (see 'AUTHORS' file for our e-mail
-addresses).
-
-ATM sniffers are claimed by the manual to record a mixture of cells and
-frames; there's currently no "raw ATM" encapsulation in wiretap to allow
-us to return that directly, so we assume that the traffic of interest is
-all LANE or all RFC 1483 traffic, search in the file for the first AAL5
-frame that's either LANE or RFC 1483, set the encapsulation based on
-which of those we saw, and discard all non-AAL5 cells as well as AAL5
-frames not of the specified type. We also discard the 2-byte LANE
-header at the front of the frame, leaving only the emulated Ethernet or
-Token Ring frame.
-
-Given that wiretap now returns packet encapsulation types on a
-per-packet basis, we could, instead, discard all non-AAL5 cells and AAL5
-frames that are neither LANE nor RFC 1483, and return the appropriate
-encapsulation for the packet as we read it.
+The uncompressed Sniffer format is documented in the Sniffer manual.
+Unfortunately, Sniffer manuals tend to document only the format for
+the Sniffer model they document. Token-Ring and ethernet seems to work
+well, though. If you have an ATM Sniffer file, both Guy and Gilbert
+would be *very* interested in receiving a sample. (see 'AUTHORS' file
+for our e-mail addresses).
LANalyzer
---------
-The LANalyzer format is available from http://www.novell.com. Search their
-knowledge base for "Trace File Format".
+The LANalyzer format is available from http://www.novell.com. Search
+their knowledge base for "Trace File Format".
Network Monitor
---------------
-Microsoft's Network Monitor file format is supported, at least under Ethernet
-and token-ring. If you have capture files of other datalink types, please send
-them to Guy Harris <guy@netapp.com>.
+Microsoft's Network Monitor file format is supported, at least under
+Ethernet and token-ring. If you have capture files of other datalink
+types, please send them to Guy.
"snoop"
-------
"iptrace"
---------
-This is the capture program that comes with AIX 3.x and 4.x. Right now
-wiretap only supports iptrace 2.0 (AIX4) because I don't have access to
-an AIX3 machine. iptrace has an undocumented, yet very simple, file
-format. The interesting thing about iptrace is that it will record
-packets coming in from all network interfaces; a single iptrace file can
-contain multiple datalink types. I have tested iptrace on ethernet and
-token-ring; if you can provide an iptrace file with any other datalink
-type, I would appreciate a copy. (with the output from 'ipreport' too,
-if possible).
+This is the capture program that comes with AIX 3.x and 4.x. AIX 3 uses
+the iptrace 1.0 file format, while AIX4 uses iptrace 2.0. iptrace has
+an undocumented, yet very simple, file format. The interesting thing
+about iptrace is that it will record packets coming in from all network
+interfaces; a single iptrace file can contain multiple datalink types.
Sniffer Basic (NetXRay)/Windows Sniffer Pro
-------------------------------------------
Network Associates' Sniffer Basic (formerly NetXRay from Cinco Networks)
-file format is now partially supported; only Ethernet captures can be
-read, and the packet time stamp isn't correctly computed. Network
-Associates' Windows Sniffer Pro appears to use a variant of that format;
-it's supported to the same extent.
+file format is now supported, at least for Ethernet and token-ring.
+Network Associates' Windows Sniffer Pro appears to use a variant of that
+format; it's supported to the same extent.
+
+RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzers
+------------------------
+Olivier Abad has added code to read Ethernet and LAPB captures from
+RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzers (see http://www.radcom-inc.com/).
+
+Lucent/Ascend access products
+-----------------------------
+Gerald
+
+HP-UX nettl
+-----------
+nettl is used on HP-UX to trace various streams based subsystems. Wiretap
+can read nettl files containing IP frames (NS_LS_IP subsystem) and LAPB
+frames (SX25L2 subsystem). It has been tested with files generated on
+HP-UX 9.04 and 10.20.
+Use the following commands to generate a trace :
+# IP capture. 0x30000000 means PDU in and PDU out :
+nettl -tn 0x30000000 -e NS_LS_IP -f tracefile
+# X25 capture. You must specify an interface :
+nettl -tn 0x30000000 -e SX25l2 -d /dev/x25_0 -f tracefile
+# stop capture. subsystem is NS_LS_IP or SX25L2 :
+nettl -tf -e subsystem
+
+One may be able to specify "-tn pduin pduout" rather than
+"-tn 0x30000000"; the nettl man page for HP-UX 10.30 implies that it
+should work.
+
+There is also basic support for nettl files containing NS_LS_DRIVER,
+NS_LS_TCP, NS_LS_UDP, NS_LS_LOOPBACK, unknown type 0xb9, and NS_LS_ICMP.
+However, NS_LS_ICMP will not be decoded since WTAP lacks a raw ICMP
+encapsulation type.
+
+
+Toshiba ISDN Router
+-------------------
+An under-documented command that the router supports in a telnet session
+is "snoop" (not related to the Solaris "snoop" command). If you give
+it the "dump" option (either by letting "snoop" query you for its next
+argument, or typing "snoop dump" on the command line), you'll get a hex
+dump of all packets across the router (except of your own telnet session
+-- good thinking Toshiba!). You can select a certain channel to sniff
+(LAN, B1, B2, D), but the default is all channels. You save this hex
+dump to disk with 'script' or by 'telnet | tee'. Wiretap will read the
+ASCII hex dump and convert it to binary data.
+
+ISDN4BSD "i4btrace" utility
+---------------------------
+Bert Driehuis
+
+Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System iplogging facility
+-----------------------------------------------------------
+Mike Hall
+
+pppd logs (pppdump-format files)
+--------------------------------
+Gilbert
+
+VMS TCPTRACE
+------------
+Compaq VMS's TCPIPTRACE format is supported. This is the capture program
+that comes with TCP/IP or UCX as supplied by Compaq or Digital Equipment
+Corporation.
+
+Under UCX 4.x, it is invoked as TCPIPTRACE. Under TCPIP 5.x, it is invoked
+as TCPTRACE.
+
+TCPTRACE produces an ascii text based format, that has changed slightly over
+time.
+
+DBS Etherwatch (text format)
+----------------------------
+Text output from DBS Etherwatch is supported. DBS Etherwatch is available
+from: http://www.users.bigpond.com/dbsneddon/software.htm.
+
+Catapult DCT2000 (.out files)
+-----------------------------
+DCT2000 test systems produce ascii text-based .out files for ports
+that have logging enabled. When being read, the data part of the message is
+prefixed with a short header that provides some context (context+port,
+direction, original timestamp, etc).
+
+You can choose to suppress the reading of non-standard protocols
+(i.e. messages between layers rather than the well-known link-level protocols
+usually found on board ports).
+
+
+Gilbert Ramirez <gram@alumni.rice.edu>
+Guy Harris <guy@alum.mit.edu>
+
+STANAG 4607
+-----------
+Initial support for the STANAG 4607 protocol. Documentation at:
+http://www.nato.int/structur/AC/224/standard/4607/4607.htm
-Gilbert Ramirez
-<gram@verdict.uthscsa.edu>
git.samba.org / metze / wireshark / wip.git / blobdiff