4 Note: This is just an ASCII snapshot of the faq and may not be up to
5 date. Please go to http://www.wireshark.org/faq.html for the up
6 to date version. The version of this snapshot can be found at
7 the end of this document.
14 1.1 What is Wireshark?
16 1.2 What's up with the name change? Is Wireshark a fork?
18 1.3 Where can I get help?
20 1.4 How much does Wireshark cost?
22 1.5 Can I use Wireshark commercially?
24 1.6 Can I use Wireshark as part of my commercial product?
26 1.7 What protocols are currently supported?
28 1.8 Are there any plans to support {your favorite protocol}?
30 1.9 Can Wireshark read capture files from {your favorite network
33 1.10 What devices can Wireshark use to capture packets?
35 1.11 Does Wireshark work on Windows Me?
37 1.12 Does Wireshark work on Windows XP?
39 2. Downloading Wireshark:
41 2.1 Why do I get an error when I try to run the Win32 installer?
43 3. Installing Wireshark:
45 3.1 I installed the Wireshark RPM (or other package); why did it
46 install TShark but not Wireshark?
48 4. Building Wireshark:
50 4.1 I have libpcap installed; why did the configure script not find
53 4.2 Why do I get the error
55 dftest_DEPENDENCIES was already defined in condition TRUE, which
56 implies condition HAVE_PLUGINS_TRUE
58 when I try to build Wireshark from SVN or a SVN snapshot?
60 4.3 Why does the linker fail with a number of "Output line too long."
61 messages followed by linker errors when I try to buil Wireshark?
63 4.4 When I try to build Wireshark on Solaris, why does the link fail
64 complaining that plugin_list is undefined?
66 4.5 When I try to build Wireshark on Windows, why does the build fail
67 because of conflicts between winsock.h and winsock2.h?
69 5. Starting Wireshark:
71 5.1 Why does Wireshark crash with a Bus Error when I try to run it on
74 5.2 When I run Wireshark on Windows NT, why does it die with a Dr.
75 Watson error, reporting an "Integer division by zero" exception, when I
78 5.3 When I try to run Wireshark, why does it complain about
79 sprint_realloc_objid being undefined?
81 5.4 When I try to run Wireshark on Windows, why does it fail to run
82 with a complaint that it can't find packet.dll?
84 5.5 I've installed Wireshark from Fink on Mac OS X; why is it very slow
87 6. Crashes and other fatal errors:
89 6.1 I have an XXX network card on my machine; if I try to capture on
90 it, why does my machine crash or reset itself?
92 6.2 Why does my machine crash or reset itself when I select "Start"
93 from the "Capture" menu or select "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu?
97 7.1 When I use Wireshark to capture packets, why do I see only packets
98 to and from my machine, or not see all the traffic I'm expecting to see
99 from or to the machine I'm trying to monitor?
101 7.2 When I capture with Wireshark, why can't I see any TCP packets
102 other than packets to and from my machine, even though another analyzer
103 on the network sees those packets?
105 7.3 Why am I only seeing ARP packets when I try to capture traffic?
107 7.4 Why am I not seeing any traffic when I try to capture traffic?
109 7.5 Can Wireshark capture on (my T1/E1 line, SS7 links, etc.)?
111 7.6 How do I put an interface into promiscuous mode?
113 7.7 I can set a display filter just fine; why don't capture filters
116 7.8 I'm entering valid capture filters; why do I still get "parse
119 7.9 How can I capture packets with CRC errors?
121 7.10 How can I capture entire frames, including the FCS?
123 7.11 I'm capturing packets on a machine on a VLAN; why don't the
124 packets I'm capturing have VLAN tags?
126 7.12 Why does Wireshark hang after I stop a capture?
128 8. Capturing packets on Windows:
130 8.1 I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why does some network interface
131 on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:"
132 field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start", and/or why does
133 Wireshark give me an error if I try to capture on that interface?
135 8.2 I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why do no network interfaces show
136 up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field in the dialog
137 box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
139 8.3 I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why doesn't my serial port/ADSL
140 modem/ISDN modem show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:"
141 field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
143 8.4 I'm running Wireshark on Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows
144 XP/Windows Server 2003; my machine has a PPP (dial-up POTS, ISDN, etc.)
145 interface, and it shows up in the "Interface" item in the "Capture
146 Options" dialog box. Why can no packets be sent on or received from
147 that network while I'm trying to capture traffic on that interface?
149 8.5 I'm running Wireshark on Windows 95/98/Me, on a machine with more
150 than one network adapter of the same type; why does Wireshark show all
151 of those adapters with the same name, not letting me use any of those
152 adapters other than the first one?
154 8.6 I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why am I not seeing any traffic
155 being sent by the machine running Wireshark?
157 8.7 When I capture on Windows in promiscuous mode, I can see packets
158 other than those sent to or from my machine; however, those packets
159 show up with a "Short Frame" indication, unlike packets to or from my
160 machine. What should I do to arrange that I see those packets in their
163 8.8 I'm capturing packets on {Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me}; why
164 are the time stamps on packets wrong?
166 8.9 I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I not
169 8.10 I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I seeing
170 packets received by the machine on which I'm capturing traffic, but not
171 packets sent by that machine?
173 8.11 I'm trying to capture Ethernet VLAN traffic on Windows, and I'm
174 capturing on a "raw" Ethernet device rather than a "VLAN interface", so
175 that I can see the VLAN headers; why am I seeing packets received by
176 the machine on which I'm capturing traffic, but not packets sent by
179 9. Capturing packets on UN*Xes:
181 9.1 I'm running Wireshark on a UNIX-flavored OS; why does some network
182 interface on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces in the
183 "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start",
184 and/or why does Wireshark give me an error if I try to capture on that
187 9.2 I'm running Wireshark on a UNIX-flavored OS; why do no network
188 interfaces show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field
189 in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
191 9.3 I'm capturing packets on Linux; why do the time stamps have only
192 100ms resolution, rather than 1us resolution?
194 10. Capturing packets on wireless LANs:
196 10.1 How can I capture raw 802.11 frames, including non-data
197 (management, beacon) frames?
199 10.2 How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode?
203 11.1 Why am I seeing lots of packets with incorrect TCP checksums?
205 11.2 I've just installed Wireshark, and the traffic on my local LAN is
206 boring. Where can I find more interesting captures?
208 11.3 Why doesn't Wireshark correctly identify RTP packets? It shows
211 11.4 Why doesn't Wireshark show Yahoo Messenger packets in captures
212 that contain Yahoo Messenger traffic?
214 12. Filtering traffic:
216 12.1 I saved a filter and tried to use its name to filter the display;
217 why do I get an "Unexpected end of filter string" error?
219 12.2 How can I search for, or filter, packets that have a particular
220 string anywhere in them?
222 12.3 How do I filter a capture to see traffic for virus XXX?
226 Q 1.1: What is Wireshark?
228 A: Gerald Combs, the creator of Ethereal®, has initiated the Wireshark
229 network protocol analyzer project, a successor to Ethereal®. The
230 Ethereal® core developer team has moved with Gerald to the Wireshark
231 project. It is the world's most popular network protocol analyzer. It
232 has a rich and powerful feature set, and runs on most computing
233 platforms including Windows, OS X, and Linux. It is freely available as
234 open source, and is released under the GNU General Public License.
236 For more information, please see the About Wireshark page.
238 Q 1.2: What's up with the name change? Is Wireshark a fork?
240 A: In May of 2006, the original author of Ethereal® went to work for
241 CACE Technologies (best known for WinPcap). Unfortunately, he had to
242 leave the Ethereal® trademarks behind.
244 This left the project in an awkward position. The only reasonable way
245 to ensure the continued success of the project was to change the name.
246 This is how Wireshark was born.
248 Wireshark is almost (but not quite) a fork. Normally a "fork" of an
249 open source project results in two names, web sites, development teams,
250 support infrastructures, etc. This is the case with Wireshark except
251 for one notable exception -- every member of the core development team
252 is now working on Wireshark. As far as anyone knows, there has been no
253 active development on Ethereal since the name change. More information
254 on the name change can be found here:
258 Q 1.3: Where can I get help?
260 A: Community support is available on the wireshark-users mailing list.
261 Subscription information and archives for all of Wireshark's mailing
262 lists can be found at http://www.wireshark.org/mailman/listinfo. An IRC
263 channel dedicated to Wireshark can be found at
264 irc://irc.freenode.net/wireshark.
266 Commercial support, training, and development services are available
267 from CACE Technologies.
269 Q 1.4: How much does Wireshark cost?
271 A: Wireshark is "free software"; you can download it without paying any
272 license fee. The version of Wireshark you download isn't a "demo"
273 version, with limitations not present in a "full" version; it is the
276 The license under which Wireshark is issued is the GNU General Public
277 License. See the GNU GPL FAQ for some more information.
279 Q 1.5: Can I use Wireshark commercially?
281 A: Yes, if, for example, you mean "I work for a commercial
282 organization; can I use Wireshark to capture and analyze network
283 traffic in our company's networks or in our customer's networks?"
285 If you mean "Can I use Wireshark as part of my commercial product?",
286 see the next entry in the FAQ.
288 Q 1.6: Can I use Wireshark as part of my commercial product?
290 A: As noted, Wireshark is licensed under the GNU General Public
291 License. The GPL imposes conditions on your use of GPL'ed code in your
292 own products; you cannot, for example, make a "derived work" from
293 Wireshark, by making modifications to it, and then sell the resulting
294 derived work and not allow recipients to give away the resulting work.
295 You must also make the changes you've made to the Wireshark source
296 available to all recipients of your modified version; those changes
297 must also be licensed under the terms of the GPL. See the GPL FAQ for
298 more details; in particular, note the answer to the question about
299 modifying a GPLed program and selling it commercially, and the question
300 about linking GPLed code with other code to make a proprietary program.
302 You can combine a GPLed program such as Wireshark and a commercial
303 program as long as they communicate "at arm's length", as per this item
306 Q 1.7: What protocols are currently supported?
308 A: There are currently hundreds of supported protocols and media.
309 Details can be found in the wireshark(1) man page.
311 Q 1.8: Are there any plans to support {your favorite protocol}?
313 A: Support for particular protocols is added to Wireshark as a result
314 of people contributing that support; no formal plans for adding support
315 for particular protocols in particular future releases exist.
317 Q 1.9: Can Wireshark read capture files from {your favorite network
320 A: Support for particular protocols is added to Wireshark as a result
321 of people contributing that support; no formal plans for adding support
322 for particular protocols in particular future releases exist.
324 If a network analyzer writes out files in a format already supported by
325 Wireshark (e.g., in libpcap format), Wireshark may already be able to
326 read them, unless the analyzer has added its own proprietary extensions
329 If a network analyzer writes out files in its own format, or has added
330 proprietary extensions to another format, in order to make Wireshark
331 read captures from that network analyzer, we would either have to have
332 a specification for the file format, or the extensions, sufficient to
333 give us enough information to read the parts of the file relevant to
334 Wireshark, or would need at least one capture file in that format AND a
335 detailed textual analysis of the packets in that capture file (showing
336 packet time stamps, packet lengths, and the top-level packet header) in
337 order to reverse-engineer the file format.
339 Note that there is no guarantee that we will be able to
340 reverse-engineer a capture file format.
342 Q 1.10: What devices can Wireshark use to capture packets?
344 A: Wireshark can read live data from Ethernet, Token-Ring, FDDI, serial
345 (PPP and SLIP) (if the OS on which it's running allows Wireshark to do
346 so), 802.11 wireless LAN (if the OS on which it's running allows
347 Wireshark to do so), ATM connections (if the OS on which it's running
348 allows Wireshark to do so), and the "any" device supported on Linux by
349 recent versions of libpcap.
351 It can also read a variety of capture file formats, including:
352 * AG Group/WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek/EtherHelp/Packet
354 * AIX's iptrace captures
355 * Accellent's 5Views LAN agent output
356 * Cinco Networks NetXRay captures
357 * Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System IPLog output
358 * CoSine L2 debug output
359 * DBS Etherwatch VMS text output
360 * Endace Measurement Systems' ERF format captures
361 * EyeSDN USB S0 traces
362 * HP-UX nettl captures
363 * ISDN4BSD project i4btrace captures
364 * Linux Bluez Bluetooth stack hcidump -w traces
365 * Lucent/Ascend router debug output
366 * Microsoft Network Monitor captures
367 * Network Associates Windows-based Sniffer captures
368 * Network General/Network Associates DOS-based Sniffer (compressed or
369 uncompressed) captures
370 * Network Instruments Observer version 9 captures
371 * Novell LANalyzer captures
372 * RADCOM's WAN/LAN analyzer captures
373 * Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor captures
374 * Toshiba's ISDN routers dump output
375 * VMS TCPIPtrace/TCPtrace/UCX$TRACE output
376 * Visual Networks' Visual UpTime traffic capture
377 * libpcap, tcpdump and various other tools using tcpdump's capture
379 * snoop and atmsnoop output
381 so that it can read traces from various network types, as captured by
382 other applications or equipment, even if it cannot itself capture on
385 Q 1.11: Does Wireshark work on Windows Me?
387 A: Yes, but if you want to capture packets, you will need to install
388 the latest version of WinPcap, as 2.02 and earlier versions of WinPcap
389 didn't support Windows Me. You should also install the latest version
390 of Wireshark as well.
392 Q 1.12: Does Wireshark work on Windows XP?
394 A: Yes, but if you want to capture packets, you will need to install
395 the latest version of WinPcap, as 2.2 and earlier versions of WinPcap
396 didn't support Windows XP.
398 2. Downloading Wireshark
400 Q 2.1: Why do I get an error when I try to run the Win32 installer?
402 A: The program you used to download it may have downloaded it
403 incorrectly. Web browsers sometimes may do this.
405 Try downloading it with, for example:
406 * Wget, for which Windows binaries are available on the SunSITE FTP
407 server at sunsite.tk or Heiko Herold's windows wget spot - wGetGUI
408 offers a GUI interface that uses wget;
409 * WS_FTP from Ipswitch,
410 * the ftp command that comes with Windows.
412 If you use the ftp command, make sure you do the transfer in binary
413 mode rather than ASCII mode, by using the binary command before
414 transferring the file.
416 3. Installing Wireshark
418 Q 3.1: I installed the Wireshark RPM (or other package); why did it
419 install TShark but not Wireshark?
421 A: Many distributions have separate Wireshark packages, one for non-GUI
422 components such as TShark, editcap, dumpcap, etc. and one for the GUI.
423 If this is the case on your system, there's probably a separate package
424 named wireshark-gnome or wireshark-gtk+. Find it and install it.
426 4. Building Wireshark
428 Q 4.1: I have libpcap installed; why did the configure script not find
431 A: Are you sure pcap.h and bpf.h are installed? The official
432 distribution of libpcap only installs the libpcap.a library file when
433 "make install" is run. To install pcap.h and bpf.h, you must run "make
434 install-incl". If you're running Debian or Redhat, make sure you have
435 the "libpcap-dev" or "libpcap-devel" packages installed.
437 It's also possible that pcap.h and bpf.h have been installed in a
438 strange location. If this is the case, you may have to tweak
441 Q 4.2: Why do I get the error
443 dftest_DEPENDENCIES was already defined in condition TRUE, which
444 implies condition HAVE_PLUGINS_TRUE
446 when I try to build Wireshark from SVN or a SVN snapshot?
448 A: You probably have automake 1.5 installed on your machine (the
449 command automake --version will report the version of automake on your
450 machine). There is a bug in that version of automake that causes this
451 problem; upgrade to a later version of automake (1.6 or later).
453 Q 4.3: Why does the linker fail with a number of "Output line too
454 long." messages followed by linker errors when I try to buil Wireshark?
456 A: The version of the sed command on your system is incapable of
457 handling very long lines. On Solaris, for example, /usr/bin/sed has a
458 line length limit too low to allow libtool to work; /usr/xpg4/bin/sed
459 can handle it, as can GNU sed if you have it installed.
461 On Solaris, changing your command search path to search /usr/xpg4/bin
462 before /usr/bin should make the problem go away; on any platform on
463 which you have this problem, installing GNU sed and changing your
464 command path to search the directory in which it is installed before
465 searching the directory with the version of sed that came with the OS
466 should make the problem go away.
468 Q 4.4: When I try to build Wireshark on Solaris, why does the link fail
469 complaining that plugin_list is undefined?
471 A: This appears to be due to a problem with some versions of the GTK+
472 and GLib packages from www.sunfreeware.org; un-install those packages,
473 and try getting the 1.2.10 versions from that site, or the versions
474 from The Written Word, or the versions from Sun's GNOME distribution,
475 or the versions from the supplemental software CD that comes with the
476 Solaris media kit, or build them from source from the GTK Web site.
477 Then re-run the configuration script, and try rebuilding Wireshark. (If
478 you get the 1.2.10 versions from www.sunfreeware.org, and the problem
479 persists, un-install them and try installing one of the other versions
482 Q 4.5: When I try to build Wireshark on Windows, why does the build
483 fail because of conflicts between winsock.h and winsock2.h?
485 A: As of Wireshark 0.9.5, you must install WinPcap 2.3 or later, and
486 the corresponding version of the developer's pack, in order to be able
487 to compile Wireshark; it will not compile with older versions of the
488 developer's pack. The symptoms of this failure are conflicts between
489 definitions in winsock.h and in winsock2.h; Wireshark uses winsock2.h,
490 but pre-2.3 versions of the WinPcap developer's packet use winsock.h.
491 (2.3 uses winsock2.h, so if Wireshark were to use winsock.h, it would
492 not be able to build with current versions of the WinPcap developer's
495 Note that the installed version of the developer's pack should be the
496 same version as the version of WinPcap you have installed.
498 5. Starting Wireshark
500 Q 5.1: Why does Wireshark crash with a Bus Error when I try to run it
503 A: Some versions of the GTK+ library from www.sunfreeware.org appear to
504 be buggy, causing Wireshark to drop core with a Bus Error. Un-install
505 those packages, and try getting the 1.2.10 version from that site, or
506 the version from The Written Word, or the version from Sun's GNOME
507 distribution, or the version from the supplemental software CD that
508 comes with the Solaris media kit, or build it from source from the GTK
509 Web site. Update the GLib library to the 1.2.10 version, from the same
510 source, as well. (If you get the 1.2.10 versions from
511 www.sunfreeware.org, and the problem persists, un-install them and try
512 installing one of the other versions mentioned.)
514 Similar problems may exist with older versions of GTK+ for earlier
517 Q 5.2: When I run Wireshark on Windows NT, why does it die with a Dr.
518 Watson error, reporting an "Integer division by zero" exception, when I
521 A: In at least some case, this appears to be due to using the default
522 VGA driver; if that's not the correct driver for your video card, try
523 running the correct driver for your video card.
525 Q 5.3: When I try to run Wireshark, why does it complain about
526 sprint_realloc_objid being undefined?
528 A: Wireshark can only be linked with version 4.2.2 or later of UCD
529 SNMP. Your version of Wireshark was dynamically linked with such a
530 version of UCD SNMP; however, you have an older version of UCD SNMP
531 installed, which means that when Wireshark is run, it tries to link to
532 the older version, and fails. You will have to replace that version of
533 UCD SNMP with version 4.2.2 or a later version.
535 Q 5.4: When I try to run Wireshark on Windows, why does it fail to run
536 with a complaint that it can't find packet.dll?
538 A: In older versions of Wireshark, there were two binary distributions
539 available for Windows, one that supported capturing packets, and one
540 that didn't. The version that supported capturing packets required that
541 you install the WinPcap driver; if you didn't install it, it would fail
542 to run because it couldn't find packet.dll.
544 The current version of Wireshark has only one binary distribution for
545 Windows; that version will check whether WinPcap is installed and, if
546 it's not, will disable support for packet capture.
548 The WinPcap driver and libraries can be downloaded from the WinPcap Web
549 site or the Wiretapped.net mirror of the WinPcap site.
551 Q 5.5: I've installed Wireshark from Fink on Mac OS X; why is it very
554 A: When an application is installed on OS X, prior to 10.4, it is
555 usually "prebound" to speed up launching the application. (That's what
556 the "Optimizing" phase of installation is.) Fink normally performs
557 prebinding automatically when you install a package. However, in some
558 rare cases, for whatever reason the prebinding caches get corrupt, and
559 then not only does prebinding fail, but startup actually becomes much
560 slower, because the system tries in vain to perform prebinding "on the
561 fly" as you launch the application. This fails, causing sometimes huge
562 delays. To fix the prebinding caches, run the command
563 sudo /sw/var/lib/fink/prebound/update-package-prebinding.pl -f
565 6. Crashes and other fatal errors
567 Q 6.1: I have an XXX network card on my machine; if I try to capture on
568 it, why does my machine crash or reset itself?
570 A: This is almost certainly a problem with one or more of:
571 * the operating system you're using;
572 * the device driver for the interface you're using;
573 * the libpcap/WinPcap library and, if this is Windows, the WinPcap
577 * if you are using Windows, see the WinPcap support page - check the
578 "Submitting bugs" section;
579 * if you are using some Linux distribution, some version of BSD, or
580 some other UNIX-flavored OS, you should report the problem to the
581 company or organization that produces the OS (in the case of a
582 Linux distribution, report the problem to whoever produces the
585 Q 6.2: Why does my machine crash or reset itself when I select "Start"
586 from the "Capture" menu or select "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu?
588 A: Both of those operations cause Wireshark to try to build a list of
589 the interfaces that it can open; it does so by getting a list of
590 interfaces and trying to open them. There is probably an OS, driver,
591 or, for Windows, WinPcap bug that causes the system to crash when this
592 happens; see the previous question.
596 Q 7.1: When I use Wireshark to capture packets, why do I see only
597 packets to and from my machine, or not see all the traffic I'm
598 expecting to see from or to the machine I'm trying to monitor?
600 A: This might be because the interface on which you're capturing is
601 plugged into an Ethernet or Token Ring switch; on a switched network,
602 unicast traffic between two ports will not necessarily appear on other
603 ports - only broadcast and multicast traffic will be sent to all ports.
605 Note that even if your machine is plugged into a hub, the "hub" may be
606 a switched hub, in which case you're still on a switched network.
608 Note also that on the Linksys Web site, they say that their
609 auto-sensing hubs "broadcast the 10Mb packets to the port that operate
610 at 10Mb only and broadcast the 100Mb packets to the ports that operate
611 at 100Mb only", which would indicate that if you sniff on a 10Mb port,
612 you will not see traffic coming sent to a 100Mb port, and vice versa.
613 This problem has also been reported for Netgear dual-speed hubs, and
614 may exist for other "auto-sensing" or "dual-speed" hubs.
616 Some switches have the ability to replicate all traffic on all ports to
617 a single port so that you can plug your analyzer into that single port
618 to sniff all traffic. You would have to check the documentation for the
619 switch to see if this is possible and, if so, to see how to do this.
620 See the switch reference page on the Wireshark Wiki for information on
621 some switches. (Note that it's a Wiki, so you can update or fix that
622 information, or add additional information on those switches or
623 information on new switches, yourself.)
625 Note also that many firewall/NAT boxes have a switch built into them;
626 this includes many of the "cable/DSL router" boxes. If you have a box
627 of that sort, that has a switch with some number of Ethernet ports into
628 which you plug machines on your network, and another Ethernet port used
629 to connect to a cable or DSL modem, you can, at least, sniff traffic
630 between the machines on your network and the Internet by plugging the
631 Ethernet port on the router going to the modem, the Ethernet port on
632 the modem, and the machine on which you're running Wireshark into a hub
633 (make sure it's not a switching hub, and that, if it's a dual-speed
634 hub, all three of those ports are running at the same speed.
636 If your machine is not plugged into a switched network or a dual-speed
637 hub, or it is plugged into a switched network but the port is set up to
638 have all traffic replicated to it, the problem might be that the
639 network interface on which you're capturing doesn't support
640 "promiscuous" mode, or because your OS can't put the interface into
641 promiscuous mode. Normally, network interfaces supply to the host only:
642 * packets sent to one of that host's link-layer addresses;
644 * multicast packets sent to a multicast address that the host has
645 configured the interface to accept.
647 Most network interfaces can also be put in "promiscuous" mode, in which
648 they supply to the host all network packets they see. Wireshark will
649 try to put the interface on which it's capturing into promiscuous mode
650 unless the "Capture packets in promiscuous mode" option is turned off
651 in the "Capture Options" dialog box, and TShark will try to put the
652 interface on which it's capturing into promiscuous mode unless the -p
653 option was specified. However, some network interfaces don't support
654 promiscuous mode, and some OSes might not allow interfaces to be put
655 into promiscuous mode.
657 If the interface is not running in promiscuous mode, it won't see any
658 traffic that isn't intended to be seen by your machine. It will see
659 broadcast packets, and multicast packets sent to a multicast MAC
660 address the interface is set up to receive.
662 You should ask the vendor of your network interface whether it supports
663 promiscuous mode. If it does, you should ask whoever supplied the
664 driver for the interface (the vendor, or the supplier of the OS you're
665 running on your machine) whether it supports promiscuous mode with that
668 In the case of token ring interfaces, the drivers for some of them, on
669 Windows, may require you to enable promiscuous mode in order to capture
670 in promiscuous mode. See the Wireshark Wiki item on Token Ring
671 capturing for details.
673 In the case of wireless LAN interfaces, it appears that, when those
674 interfaces are promiscuously sniffing, they're running in a
675 significantly different mode from the mode that they run in when
676 they're just acting as network interfaces (to the extent that it would
677 be a significant effor for those drivers to support for promiscuously
678 sniffing and acting as regular network interfaces at the same time), so
679 it may be that Windows drivers for those interfaces don't support
682 Q 7.2: When I capture with Wireshark, why can't I see any TCP packets
683 other than packets to and from my machine, even though another analyzer
684 on the network sees those packets?
686 A: You're probably not seeing any packets other than unicast packets to
687 or from your machine, and broadcast and multicast packets; a switch
688 will normally send to a port only unicast traffic sent to the MAC
689 address for the interface on that port, and broadcast and multicast
690 traffic - it won't send to that port unicast traffic sent to a MAC
691 address for some other interface - and a network interface not in
692 promiscuous mode will receive only unicast traffic sent to the MAC
693 address for that interface, broadcast traffic, and multicast traffic
694 sent to a multicast MAC address the interface is set up to receive.
696 TCP doesn't use broadcast or multicast, so you will only see your own
697 TCP traffic, but UDP services may use broadcast or multicast so you'll
698 see some UDP traffic - however, this is not a problem with TCP traffic,
699 it's a problem with unicast traffic, as you also won't see all UDP
700 traffic between other machines.
702 I.e., this is probably the same question as this earlier one; see the
703 response to that question.
705 Q 7.3: Why am I only seeing ARP packets when I try to capture traffic?
707 A: You're probably on a switched network, and running Wireshark on a
708 machine that's not sending traffic to the switch and not being sent any
709 traffic from other machines on the switch. ARP packets are often
710 broadcast packets, which are sent to all switch ports.
712 I.e., this is probably the same question as this earlier one; see the
713 response to that question.
715 Q 7.4: Why am I not seeing any traffic when I try to capture traffic?
717 A: Is the machine running Wireshark sending out any traffic on the
718 network interface on which you're capturing, or receiving any traffic
719 on that network, or is there any broadcast traffic on the network or
720 multicast traffic to a multicast group to which the machine running
723 If not, this may just be a problem with promiscuous sniffing, either
724 due to running on a switched network or a dual-speed hub, or due to
725 problems with the interface not supporting promiscuous mode; see the
726 response to this earlier question.
728 Otherwise, on Windows, see the response to this question and, on a
729 UNIX-flavored OS, see the response to this question.
731 Q 7.5: Can Wireshark capture on (my T1/E1 line, SS7 links, etc.)?
733 A: Wireshark can only capture on devices supported by libpcap/WinPcap.
734 On most OSes, only devices that can act as network interfaces of the
735 type that support IP are supported as capture devices for
736 libpcap/WinPcap, although the device doesn't necessarily have to be
737 running as an IP interface in order to support traffic capture.
739 On Linux and FreeBSD, libpcap 0.8 and later support the API for Endace
740 Measurement Systems' DAG cards, so that a system with one of those
741 cards, and its driver and libraries, installed can capture traffic with
742 those cards with libpcap-based applications. You would either have to
743 have a version of Wireshark built with that version of libpcap, or a
744 dynamically-linked version of Wireshark and a shared libpcap library
745 with DAG support, in order to do so with Wireshark. You should ask
746 Endace whether that could be used to capture traffic on, for example,
747 your T1/E1 link. See the SS7 capture setup page on the Wireshark Wiki
748 for current information on capturing SS7 traffic on TDM links.
750 Q 7.6: How do I put an interface into promiscuous mode?
752 A: By not disabling promiscuous mode when running Wireshark or TShark.
755 * the form of promiscuous mode that libpcap (the library that
756 programs such as tcpdump, Wireshark, etc. use to do packet capture)
757 turns on will not necessarily be shown if you run ifconfig on the
758 interface on a UNIX system;
759 * some network interfaces might not support promiscuous mode, and
760 some drivers might not allow promiscuous mode to be turned on - see
761 this earlier question for more information on that;
762 * the fact that you're not seeing any traffic, or are only seeing
763 broadcast traffic, or aren't seeing any non-broadcast traffic other
764 than traffic to or from the machine running Wireshark, does not
765 mean that promiscuous mode isn't on - see this earlier question for
766 more information on that.
768 I.e., this is probably the same question as this earlier one; see the
769 response to that question.
771 Q 7.7: I can set a display filter just fine; why don't capture filters
774 A: Capture filters currently use a different syntax than display
775 filters. Here's the corresponding section from the wireshark(1) man
778 "Display filters in Wireshark are very powerful; more fields are
779 filterable in Wireshark than in other protocol analyzers, and the
780 syntax you can use to create your filters is richer. As Wireshark
781 progresses, expect more and more protocol fields to be allowed in
784 Packet capturing is performed with the pcap library. The capture filter
785 syntax follows the rules of the pcap library. This syntax is different
786 from the display filter syntax."
788 The capture filter syntax used by libpcap can be found in the
791 Q 7.8: I'm entering valid capture filters; why do I still get "parse
794 A: There is a bug in some versions of libpcap/WinPcap that cause it to
795 report parse errors even for valid expressions if a previous filter
796 expression was invalid and got a parse error.
798 Try exiting and restarting Wireshark; if you are using a version of
799 libpcap/WinPcap with this bug, this will "erase" its memory of the
800 previous parse error. If the capture filter that got the "parse error"
801 now works, the earlier error with that filter was probably due to this
804 The bug was fixed in libpcap 0.6; 0.4[.x] and 0.5[.x] versions of
805 libpcap have this bug, but 0.6[.x] and later versions don't.
807 Versions of WinPcap prior to 2.3 are based on pre-0.6 versions of
808 libpcap, and have this bug; WinPcap 2.3 is based on libpcap 0.6.2, and
809 doesn't have this bug.
811 If you are running Wireshark on a UNIX-flavored platform, run
812 "wireshark -v", or select "About Wireshark..." from the "Help" menu in
813 Wireshark, to see what version of libpcap it's using. If it's not 0.6
814 or later, you will need either to upgrade your OS to get a later
815 version of libpcap, or will need to build and install a later version
816 of libpcap from the tcpdump.org Web site and then recompile Wireshark
817 from source with that later version of libpcap.
819 If you are running Wireshark on Windows with a pre-2.3 version of
820 WinPcap, you will need to un-install WinPcap and then download and
823 Q 7.9: How can I capture packets with CRC errors?
825 A: Wireshark can capture only the packets that the packet capture
826 library - libpcap on UNIX-flavored OSes, and the WinPcap port to
827 Windows of libpcap on Windows - can capture, and libpcap/WinPcap can
828 capture only the packets that the OS's raw packet capture mechanism (or
829 the WinPcap driver, and the underlying OS networking code and network
830 interface drivers, on Windows) will allow it to capture.
832 Unless the OS always supplies packets with errors such as invalid CRCs
833 to the raw packet capture mechanism, or can be configured to do so,
834 invalid CRCs to the raw packet capture mechanism, Wireshark - and other
835 programs that capture raw packets, such as tcpdump - cannot capture
836 those packets. You will have to determine whether your OS needs to be
837 so configured and, if so, can be so configured, configure it if
838 necessary and possible, and make whatever changes to libpcap and the
839 packet capture program you're using are necessary, if any, to support
840 capturing those packets.
842 Most OSes probably do not support capturing packets with invalid CRCs
843 on Ethernet, and probably do not support it on most other link-layer
844 types. Some drivers on some OSes do support it, such as some Ethernet
845 drivers on FreeBSD; in those OSes, you might always get those packets,
846 or you might only get them if you capture in promiscuous mode (you'd
847 have to determine which is the case).
849 Note that libpcap does not currently supply to programs that use it an
850 indication of whether the packet's CRC was invalid (because the drivers
851 themselves do not supply that information to the raw packet capture
852 mechanism); therefore, Wireshark will not indicate which packets had
853 CRC errors unless the FCS was captured (see the next question) and
854 you're using Wireshark 0.9.15 and later, in which case Wireshark will
855 check the CRC and indicate whether it's correct or not.
857 Q 7.10: How can I capture entire frames, including the FCS?
859 A: Wireshark can only capture data that the packet capture library -
860 libpcap on UNIX-flavored OSes, and the WinPcap port to Windows of
861 libpcap on Windows - can capture, and libpcap/WinPcap can capture only
862 the data that the OS's raw packet capture mechanism (or the WinPcap
863 driver, and the underlying OS networking code and network interface
864 drivers, on Windows) will allow it to capture.
866 For any particular link-layer network type, unless the OS supplies the
867 FCS of a frame as part of the frame, or can be configured to do so,
868 Wireshark - and other programs that capture raw packets, such as
869 tcpdump - cannot capture the FCS of a frame. You will have to determine
870 whether your OS needs to be so configured and, if so, can be so
871 configured, configure it if necessary and possible, and make whatever
872 changes to libpcap and the packet capture program you're using are
873 necessary, if any, to support capturing the FCS of a frame.
875 Most OSes do not support capturing the FCS of a frame on Ethernet, and
876 probably do not support it on most other link-layer types. Some drivres
877 on some OSes do support it, such as some (all?) Ethernet drivers on
878 NetBSD and possibly the driver for Apple's gigabit Ethernet interface
879 in Mac OS X; in those OSes, you might always get the FCS, or you might
880 only get the FCS if you capture in promiscuous mode (you'd have to
881 determine which is the case).
883 Versions of Wireshark prior to 0.9.15 will not treat an Ethernet FCS in
884 a captured packet as an FCS. 0.9.15 and later will attempt to determine
885 whether there's an FCS at the end of the frame and, if it thinks there
886 is, will display it as such, and will check whether it's the correct
889 Q 7.11: I'm capturing packets on a machine on a VLAN; why don't the
890 packets I'm capturing have VLAN tags?
892 A: You might be capturing on what might be called a "VLAN interface" -
893 the way a particular OS makes VLANs plug into the networking stack
894 might, for example, be to have a network device object for the physical
895 interface, which takes VLAN packets, strips off the VLAN header and
896 constructs an Ethernet header, and passes that packet to an internal
897 network device object for the VLAN, which then passes the packets onto
898 various higher-level protocol implementations.
900 In order to see the raw Ethernet packets, rather than "de-VLANized"
901 packets, you would have to capture not on the virtual interface for the
902 VLAN, but on the interface corresponding to the physical network
903 device, if possible. See the Wireshark Wiki item on VLAN capturing for
906 Q 7.12: Why does Wireshark hang after I stop a capture?
908 A: The most likely reason for this is that Wireshark is trying to look
909 up an IP address in the capture to convert it to a name (so that, for
910 example, it can display the name in the source address or destination
911 address columns), and that lookup process is taking a very long time.
913 Wireshark calls a routine in the OS of the machine on which it's
914 running to convert of IP addresses to the corresponding names. That
915 routine probably does one or more of:
916 * a search of a system file listing IP addresses and names;
917 * a lookup using DNS;
918 * on UNIX systems, a lookup using NIS;
919 * on Windows systems, a NetBIOS-over-TCP query.
921 If a DNS server that's used in an address lookup is not responding, the
922 lookup will fail, but will only fail after a timeout while the system
923 routine waits for a reply.
925 In addition, on Windows systems, if the DNS lookup of the address
926 fails, either because the server isn't responding or because there are
927 no records in the DNS that could be used to map the address to a name,
928 a NetBIOS-over-TCP query will be made. That query involves sending a
929 message to the NetBIOS-over-TCP name service on that machine, asking
930 for the name and other information about the machine. If the machine
931 isn't running software that responds to those queries - for example,
932 many non-Windows machines wouldn't be running that software - the
933 lookup will only fail after a timeout. Those timeouts can cause the
934 lookup to take a long time.
936 If you disable network address-to-name translation - for example, by
937 turning off the "Enable network name resolution" option in the "Capture
938 Options" dialog box for starting a network capture - the lookups of the
939 address won't be done, which may speed up the process of reading the
940 capture file after the capture is stopped. You can make that setting
941 the default by selecting "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu, turning
942 off the "Enable network name resolution" option in the "Name
943 resolution" options in the preferences disalog box, and using the
944 "Save" button in that dialog box; note that this will save all your
945 current preference settings.
947 If Wireshark hangs when reading a capture even with network name
948 resolution turned off, there might, for example, be a bug in one of
949 Wireshark's dissectors for a protocol causing it to loop infinitely. If
950 you're not running the most recent release of Wireshark, you should
951 first upgrade to that release, as, if there's a bug of that sort, it
952 might've been fixed in a release after the one you're running. If the
953 hang occurs in the most recent release of Wireshark, the bug should be
954 reported to the Wireshark developers' mailing list at
955 wireshark-dev@wireshark.org.
957 On UNIX-flavored OSes, please try to force Wireshark to dump core, by
958 sending it a SIGABRT signal (usually signal 6) with the kill command,
959 and then get a stack trace if you have a debugger installed. A stack
960 trace can be obtained by using your debugger (gdb in this example), the
961 Wireshark binary, and the resulting core file. Here's an example of how
962 to use the gdb command backtrace to do so.
965 ..... prints the stack trace
969 The core dump file may be named "wireshark.core" rather than "core" on
970 some platforms (e.g., BSD systems).
972 Also, if at all possible, please send a copy of the capture file that
973 caused the problem; when capturing packets, Wireshark normally writes
974 captured packets to a temporary file, which will probably be in /tmp or
975 /var/tmp on UNIX-flavored OSes, \TEMP on the main system disk (normally
976 C:) on Windows 9x/Me/NT 4.0, and \Documents and Settings\your login
977 name\Local Settings\Temp on the main system disk on Windows
978 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003, so the capture file will probably
979 be there. It will have a name beginning with ether, with some mixture
980 of letters and numbers after that. Please don't send a trace file
981 greater than 1 MB when compressed; instead, make it available via FTP
982 or HTTP, or say it's available but leave it up to a developer to ask
983 for it. If the trace file contains sensitive information (e.g.,
984 passwords), then please do not send it.
986 8. Capturing packets on Windows
988 Q 8.1: I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why does some network
989 interface on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces in the
990 "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start",
991 and/or why does Wireshark give me an error if I try to capture on that
994 A: If you are running Wireshark on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000,
995 Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003, and this is the first time you have
996 run a WinPcap-based program (such as Wireshark, or TShark, or WinDump,
997 or Analyzer, or...) since the machine was rebooted, you need to run
998 that program from an account with administrator privileges; once you
999 have run such a program, you will not need administrator privileges to
1000 run any such programs until you reboot.
1002 If you are running on Windows 95/98/Me, or if you are running on
1003 Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003 and have
1004 administrator privileges or a WinPcap-based program has been run with
1005 those privileges since the machine rebooted, this problem might clear
1006 up if you completely un-install WinPcap and then re-install it.
1008 If that doesn't work, then note that Wireshark relies on the WinPcap
1009 library, on the WinPcap device driver, and on the facilities that come
1010 with the OS on which it's running in order to do captures.
1012 Therefore, if the OS, the WinPcap library, or the WinPcap driver don't
1013 support capturing on a particular network interface device, Wireshark
1014 won't be able to capture on that device.
1017 1. 2.02 and earlier versions of the WinPcap driver and library that
1018 Wireshark uses for packet capture didn't support Token Ring
1019 interfaces; versions 2.1 and later support Token Ring, and the
1020 current version of Wireshark works with (and, in fact, requires)
1021 WinPcap 2.1 or later.
1022 If you are having problems capturing on Token Ring interfaces, and
1023 you have WinPcap 2.02 or an earlier version of WinPcap installed,
1024 you should uninstall WinPcap, download and install the current
1025 version of WinPcap, and then install the latest version of
1027 2. On Windows 95, 98, or Me, sometimes more than one interface will be
1028 given the same name; if that is the case, you will only be able to
1029 capture on one of those interfaces - it's not clear to which one
1030 the name, when used in a WinPcap-based application, will refer. For
1031 example, if you have a PPP serial interface and a VPN interface,
1032 they might show up with the same name, for example "ppp-mac", and
1033 if you try to capture on "ppp-mac", it might not capture on the
1034 interface you're currently using. In that case, you might, for
1035 example, have to remove the VPN interface from the system in order
1036 to capture on the PPP serial interface.
1037 3. WinPcap 2.3 has problems supporting PPP WAN interfaces on Windows
1038 NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, and, to
1039 avoid those problems, support for PPP WAN interfaces on those
1040 versions of Windows has been disabled in WinPcap 3.0. Regular
1041 dial-up lines, ISDN lines, ADSL connections using PPPoE or PPPoA,
1042 and various other lines such as T1/E1 lines are all PPP interfaces,
1043 so those interfaces might not show up on the list of interfaces in
1044 the "Capture Options" dialog on those OSes.
1045 On Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, but not
1046 Windows NT 4.0 or Windows Vista Beta 1, you should be able to
1047 capture on the "GenericDialupAdapter" with WinPcap 3.1. (3.1 beta
1048 releases called it the "NdisWanAdapter"; if you're using a 3.1 beta
1049 release, you should un-install it and install the final 3.1
1050 release.) See the Wireshark Wiki item on PPP capturing for details.
1051 4. WinPcap prior to 3.0 does not support multiprocessor machines (note
1052 that machines with a single multi-threaded processor, such as
1053 Intel's new multi-threaded x86 processors, are multiprocessor
1054 machines as far as the OS and WinPcap are concerned), and recent
1055 2.x versions of WinPcap refuse to operate if they detect that
1056 they're running on a multiprocessor machine, which means that they
1057 may not show any network interfaces. You will need to use WinPcap
1058 3.0 to capture on a multiprocessor machine.
1060 If an interface doesn't show up in the list of interfaces in the
1061 "Interface:" field, and you know the name of the interface, try
1062 entering that name in the "Interface:" field and capturing on that
1065 If the attempt to capture on it succeeds, the interface is somehow not
1066 being reported by the mechanism Wireshark uses to get a list of
1067 interfaces. Try listing the interfaces with WinDump; see the WinDump
1068 Web site for information on using WinDump.
1070 You would run WinDump with the -D flag; if it lists the interface,
1071 please report this to wireshark-dev@wireshark.org giving full details
1072 of the problem, including
1073 * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
1075 * the type of network device you're using;
1076 * the output of WinDump.
1078 If WinDump does not list the interface, this is almost certainly a
1079 problem with one or more of:
1080 * the operating system you're using;
1081 * the device driver for the interface you're using;
1082 * the WinPcap library and/or the WinPcap device driver;
1084 so first check the WinPcap FAQ or the Wiretapped.net mirror of that
1085 FAQ, to see if your problem is mentioned there. If not, then see the
1086 WinPcap support page - check the "Submitting bugs" section.
1088 If you are having trouble capturing on a particular network interface,
1089 first try capturing on that device with WinDump; see the WinDump Web
1090 site for information on using WinDump.
1092 If you can capture on the interface with WinDump, send mail to
1093 wireshark-users@wireshark.org giving full details of the problem,
1095 * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
1097 * the type of network device you're using;
1098 * the error message you get from Wireshark.
1100 If you cannot capture on the interface with WinDump, this is almost
1101 certainly a problem with one or more of:
1102 * the operating system you're using;
1103 * the device driver for the interface you're using;
1104 * the WinPcap library and/or the WinPcap device driver;
1106 so first check the WinPcap FAQ or the Wiretapped.net mirror of that
1107 FAQ, to see if your problem is mentioned there. If not, then see the
1108 WinPcap support page - check the "Submitting bugs" section.
1110 You may also want to ask the wireshark-users@wireshark.org and the
1111 winpcap-users@winpcap.org mailing lists to see if anybody happens to
1112 know about the problem and know a workaround or fix for the problem.
1113 (Note that you will have to subscribe to that list in order to be
1114 allowed to mail to it; see the WinPcap support page for information on
1115 the mailing list.) In your mail, please give full details of the
1116 problem, as described above, and also indicate that the problem occurs
1117 with WinDump, not just with Wireshark.
1119 Q 8.2: I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why do no network interfaces
1120 show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field in the
1121 dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
1123 A: This is really the same question as the previous one; see the
1124 response to that question.
1126 Q 8.3: I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why doesn't my serial
1127 port/ADSL modem/ISDN modem show up in the list of interfaces in the
1128 "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
1130 A: Internet access on those devices is often done with the
1131 Point-to-Point (PPP) protocol; WinPcap 2.3 has problems supporting PPP
1132 WAN interfaces on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows
1133 Server 2003, and, to avoid those problems, support for PPP WAN
1134 interfaces on those versions of Windows has been disabled in WinPcap
1137 On Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, but not Windows
1138 NT 4.0 or Windows Vista Beta 1, you should be able to capture on the
1139 "GenericDialupAdapter" with WinPcap 3.1. (3.1 beta releases called it
1140 the "NdisWanAdapter"; if you're using a 3.1 beta release, you should
1141 un-install it and install the final 3.1 release.) See the Wireshark
1142 Wiki item on PPP capturing for details.
1144 Q 8.4: I'm running Wireshark on Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows
1145 XP/Windows Server 2003; my machine has a PPP (dial-up POTS, ISDN, etc.)
1146 interface, and it shows up in the "Interface" item in the "Capture
1147 Options" dialog box. Why can no packets be sent on or received from
1148 that network while I'm trying to capture traffic on that interface?
1150 A: Some versions of WinPcap have problems with PPP WAN interfaces on
1151 Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003; one
1152 symptom that may be seen is that attempts to capture in promiscuous
1153 mode on the interface cause the interface to be incapable of sending or
1154 receiving packets. You can disable promiscuous mode using the -p
1155 command-line flag or the item in the "Capture Preferences" dialog box,
1156 but this may mean that outgoing packets, or incoming packets, won't be
1157 seen in the capture.
1159 On Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, but not Windows
1160 NT 4.0 or Windows Vista Beta 1, you should be able to capture on the
1161 "GenericDialupAdapter" with WinPcap 3.1. (3.1 beta releases called it
1162 the "NdisWanAdapter"; if you're using a 3.1 beta release, you should
1163 un-install it and install the final 3.1 release.) See the Wireshark
1164 Wiki item on PPP capturing for details.
1166 Q 8.5: I'm running Wireshark on Windows 95/98/Me, on a machine with
1167 more than one network adapter of the same type; why does Wireshark show
1168 all of those adapters with the same name, not letting me use any of
1169 those adapters other than the first one?
1171 A: Unfortunately, Windows 95/98/Me gives the same name to multiple
1172 instances of the type of same network adapter. Therefore, WinPcap
1173 cannot distinguish between them, so a WinPcap-based application can
1174 capture only on the first such interface; Wireshark is a
1175 libpcap/WinPcap-based application.
1177 Q 8.6: I'm running Wireshark on Windows; why am I not seeing any
1178 traffic being sent by the machine running Wireshark?
1180 A: If you are running some form of VPN client software, it might be
1181 causing this problem; people have seen this problem when they have
1182 Check Point's VPN software installed on their machine. If that's the
1183 cause of the problem, you will have to remove the VPN software in order
1184 to have Wireshark (or any other application using WinPcap) see outgoing
1185 packets; unfortunately, neither we nor the WinPcap developers know any
1186 way to make WinPcap and the VPN software work well together.
1188 Also, some drivers for Windows (especially some wireless network
1189 interface drivers) apparently do not, when running in promiscuous mode,
1190 arrange that outgoing packets are delivered to the software that
1191 requested that the interface run promiscuously; try turning promiscuous
1194 Q 8.7: When I capture on Windows in promiscuous mode, I can see packets
1195 other than those sent to or from my machine; however, those packets
1196 show up with a "Short Frame" indication, unlike packets to or from my
1197 machine. What should I do to arrange that I see those packets in their
1200 A: In at least some cases, this appears to be the result of PGPnet
1201 running on the network interface on which you're capturing; turn it off
1204 Q 8.8: I'm capturing packets on {Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me};
1205 why are the time stamps on packets wrong?
1207 A: This is due to a bug in WinPcap. The bug should be fixed in WinPcap
1208 3.0 and later releases.
1210 Q 8.9: I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I not
1213 A: At least some 802.11 card drivers on Windows appear not to see any
1214 packets if they're running in promiscuous mode. Try turning promiscuous
1215 mode off; you'll only be able to see packets sent by and received by
1216 your machine, not third-party traffic, and it'll look like Ethernet
1217 traffic and won't include any management or control frames, but that's
1218 a limitation of the card drivers.
1220 See MicroLogix's list of cards supported with WinPcap for information
1221 on support of various adapters and drivers with WinPcap.
1223 Q 8.10: I'm trying to capture 802.11 traffic on Windows; why am I
1224 seeing packets received by the machine on which I'm capturing traffic,
1225 but not packets sent by that machine?
1227 A: This appears to be another problem with promiscuous mode; try
1230 Q 8.11: I'm trying to capture Ethernet VLAN traffic on Windows, and I'm
1231 capturing on a "raw" Ethernet device rather than a "VLAN interface", so
1232 that I can see the VLAN headers; why am I seeing packets received by
1233 the machine on which I'm capturing traffic, but not packets sent by
1236 A: The way the Windows networking code works probably means that
1237 packets are sent on a "VLAN interface" rather than the "raw" device, so
1238 packets sent by the machine will only be seen when you capture on the
1239 "VLAN interface". If so, you will be unable to see outgoing packets
1240 when capturing on the "raw" device, so you are stuck with a choice
1241 between seeing VLAN headers and seeing outgoing packets.
1243 9. Capturing packets on UN*Xes
1245 Q 9.1: I'm running Wireshark on a UNIX-flavored OS; why does some
1246 network interface on my machine not show up in the list of interfaces
1247 in the "Interface:" field in the dialog box popped up by
1248 "Capture->Start", and/or why does Wireshark give me an error if I try
1249 to capture on that interface?
1251 A: You may need to run Wireshark from an account with sufficient
1252 privileges to capture packets, such as the super-user account, or may
1253 need to give your account sufficient privileges to capture packets.
1254 Only those interfaces that Wireshark can open for capturing show up in
1255 that list; if you don't have sufficient privileges to capture on any
1256 interfaces, no interfaces will show up in the list. See the Wireshark
1257 Wiki item on capture privileges for details on how to give a particular
1258 account or account group capture privileges on platforms where that can
1261 If you are running Wireshark from an account with sufficient
1262 privileges, then note that Wireshark relies on the libpcap library, and
1263 on the facilities that come with the OS on which it's running in order
1264 to do captures. On some OSes, those facilities aren't present by
1265 default; see the Wireshark Wiki item on adding capture support for
1268 And, even if you're running with an account that has sufficient
1269 privileges to capture, and capture support is present in your OS, if
1270 the OS or the libpcap library don't support capturing on a particular
1271 network interface device or particular types of devices, Wireshark
1272 won't be able to capture on that device.
1274 On Solaris, note that libpcap 0.6.2 and earlier didn't support Token
1275 Ring interfaces; the current version, 0.7.2, does support Token Ring,
1276 and the current version of Wireshark works with libcap 0.7.2 and later.
1278 If an interface doesn't show up in the list of interfaces in the
1279 "Interface:" field, and you know the name of the interface, try
1280 entering that name in the "Interface:" field and capturing on that
1283 If the attempt to capture on it succeeds, the interface is somehow not
1284 being reported by the mechanism Wireshark uses to get a list of
1285 interfaces; please report this to wireshark-dev@wireshark.org giving
1286 full details of the problem, including
1287 * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
1288 operating system (for Linux, give both the version number of the
1289 kernel and the name and version number of the distribution you're
1291 * the type of network device you're using.
1293 If you are having trouble capturing on a particular network interface,
1294 and you've made sure that (on platforms that require it) you've
1295 arranged that packet capture support is present, as per the above,
1296 first try capturing on that device with tcpdump.
1298 If you can capture on the interface with tcpdump, send mail to
1299 wireshark-users@wireshark.org giving full details of the problem,
1301 * the operating system you're using, and the version of that
1302 operating system (for Linux, give both the version number of the
1303 kernel and the name and version number of the distribution you're
1305 * the type of network device you're using;
1306 * the error message you get from Wireshark.
1308 If you cannot capture on the interface with tcpdump, this is almost
1309 certainly a problem with one or more of:
1310 * the operating system you're using;
1311 * the device driver for the interface you're using;
1312 * the libpcap library;
1314 so you should report the problem to the company or organization that
1315 produces the OS (in the case of a Linux distribution, report the
1316 problem to whoever produces the distribution).
1318 You may also want to ask the wireshark-users@wireshark.org and the
1319 tcpdump-workers@tcpdump.org mailing lists to see if anybody happens to
1320 know about the problem and know a workaround or fix for the problem. In
1321 your mail, please give full details of the problem, as described above,
1322 and also indicate that the problem occurs with tcpdump not just with
1325 Q 9.2: I'm running Wireshark on a UNIX-flavored OS; why do no network
1326 interfaces show up in the list of interfaces in the "Interface:" field
1327 in the dialog box popped up by "Capture->Start"?
1329 A: This is really the same question as the previous one; see the
1330 response to that question.
1332 Q 9.3: I'm capturing packets on Linux; why do the time stamps have only
1333 100ms resolution, rather than 1us resolution?
1335 A: Wireshark gets time stamps from libpcap/WinPcap, and libpcap/WinPcap
1336 get them from the OS kernel, so Wireshark - and any other program using
1337 libpcap, such as tcpdump - is at the mercy of the time stamping code in
1338 the OS for time stamps.
1340 At least on x86-based machines, Linux can get high-resolution time
1341 stamps on newer processors with the Time Stamp Counter (TSC) register;
1342 for example, Intel x86 processors, starting with the Pentium Pro, and
1343 including all x86 processors since then, have had a TSC, and other
1344 vendors probably added the TSC at some point to their families of x86
1347 The Linux kernel must be configured with the CONFIG_X86_TSC option
1348 enabled in order to use the TSC. Make sure this option is enabled in
1351 In addition, some Linux distributions may have bugs in their versions
1352 of the kernel that cause packets not to be given high-resolution time
1353 stamps even if the TSC is enabled. See, for example, bug 61111 for Red
1354 Hat Linux 7.2. If your distribution has a bug such as this, you may
1355 have to run a standard kernel from kernel.org in order to get
1356 high-resolution time stamps.
1358 10. Capturing packets on wireless LANs
1360 Q 10.1: How can I capture raw 802.11 frames, including non-data
1361 (management, beacon) frames?
1363 A: That depends on the operating system on which you're running, and on
1364 the 802.11 interface on which you're capturing.
1366 This would probably require that you capture in promiscuous mode or in
1367 the mode called "monitor mode" or "RFMON mode". On some platforms, or
1368 with some cards, this might require that you capture in monitor mode -
1369 promiscuous mode might not be sufficient. If you want to capture
1370 traffic on networks other than the one with which you're associated,
1371 you will have to capture in monitor mode.
1373 Not all operating systems support capturing non-data packets and, even
1374 on operating systems that do support it, not all drivers, and thus not
1375 all interfaces, support it. Even on those that do, monitor mode might
1376 not be supported by the operating system or by the drivers for all
1379 NOTE: an interface running in monitor mode will, on most if not all
1380 platforms, not be able to act as a regular network interface; putting
1381 it into monitor mode will, in effect, take your machine off of whatever
1382 network it's on as long as the interface is in monitor mode, allowing
1383 it only to passively capture packets.
1385 This means that you should disable name resolution when capturing in
1386 monitor mode; otherwise, when Wireshark (or TShark, or tcpdump) tries
1387 to display IP addresses as host names, it will probably block for a
1388 long time trying to resolve the name because it will not be able to
1389 communicate with any DNS or NIS servers.
1391 See the Wireshark Wiki item on 802.11 capturing for details.
1393 Q 10.2: How do I capture on an 802.11 device in monitor mode?
1395 A: Whether you will be able to capture in monitor mode depends on the
1396 operating system, adapter, and driver you're using. See the previous
1397 question for information on monitor mode, including a link to the
1398 Wireshark Wiki page that gives details on 802.11 capturing.
1402 Q 11.1: Why am I seeing lots of packets with incorrect TCP checksums?
1404 A: If the packets that have incorrect TCP checksums are all being sent
1405 by the machine on which Wireshark is running, this is probably because
1406 the network interface on which you're capturing does TCP checksum
1407 offloading. That means that the TCP checksum is added to the packet by
1408 the network interface, not by the OS's TCP/IP stack; when capturing on
1409 an interface, packets being sent by the host on which you're capturing
1410 are directly handed to the capture interface by the OS, which means
1411 that they are handed to the capture interface without a TCP checksum
1412 being added to them.
1414 The only way to prevent this from happening would be to disable TCP
1415 checksum offloading, but
1416 1. that might not even be possible on some OSes;
1417 2. that could reduce networking performance significantly.
1419 However, you can disable the check that Wireshark does of the TCP
1420 checksum, so that it won't report any packets as having TCP checksum
1421 errors, and so that it won't refuse to do TCP reassembly due to a
1422 packet having an incorrect TCP checksum. That can be set as an
1423 Wireshark preference by selecting "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu,
1424 opening up the "Protocols" list in the left-hand pane of the
1425 "Preferences" dialog box, selecting "TCP", from that list, turning off
1426 the "Check the validity of the TCP checksum when possible" option,
1427 clicking "Save" if you want to save that setting in your preference
1428 file, and clicking "OK".
1430 It can also be set on the Wireshark or TShark command line with a -o
1431 tcp.check_checksum:false command-line flag, or manually set in your
1432 preferences file by adding a tcp.check_checksum:false line.
1434 Q 11.2: I've just installed Wireshark, and the traffic on my local LAN
1435 is boring. Where can I find more interesting captures?
1437 A: We have a collection of strange and exotic sample capture files at
1438 http://wiki.wireshark.org/SampleCaptures
1440 Q 11.3: Why doesn't Wireshark correctly identify RTP packets? It shows
1443 A: Wireshark can identify a UDP datagram as containing a packet of a
1444 particular protocol running atop UDP only if
1445 1. The protocol in question has a particular standard port number, and
1446 the UDP source or destination port number is that port
1447 2. Packets of that protocol can be identified by looking for a
1448 "signature" of some type in the packet - i.e., some data that, if
1449 Wireshark finds it in some particular part of a packet, means that
1450 the packet is almost certainly a packet of that type.
1451 3. Some other traffic earlier in the capture indicated that, for
1452 example, UDP traffic between two particular addresses and ports
1453 will be RTP traffic.
1455 RTP doesn't have a standard port number, so 1) doesn't work; it
1456 doesn't, as far as I know, have any "signature", so 2) doesn't work.
1458 That leaves 3). If there's RTSP traffic that sets up an RTP session,
1459 then, at least in some cases, the RTSP dissector will set things up so
1460 that subsequent RTP traffic will be identified. Currently, that's the
1461 only place we do that; there may be other places.
1463 However, there will always be places where Wireshark is simply
1464 incapable of deducing that a given UDP flow is RTP; a mechanism would
1465 be needed to allow the user to specify that a given conversation should
1466 be treated as RTP. As of Wireshark 0.8.16, such a mechanism exists; if
1467 you select a UDP or TCP packet, the right mouse button menu will have a
1468 "Decode As..." menu item, which will pop up a dialog box letting you
1469 specify that the source port, the destination port, or both the source
1470 and destination ports of the packet should be dissected as some
1471 particular protocol.
1473 Q 11.4: Why doesn't Wireshark show Yahoo Messenger packets in captures
1474 that contain Yahoo Messenger traffic?
1476 A: Wireshark only recognizes as Yahoo Messenger traffic packets to or
1477 from TCP port 3050 that begin with "YPNS", "YHOO", or "YMSG". TCP
1478 segments that start with the middle of a Yahoo Messenger packet that
1479 takes more than one TCP segment will not be recognized as Yahoo
1480 Messenger packets (even if the TCP segment also contains the beginning
1481 of another Yahoo Messenger packet).
1483 12. Filtering traffic
1485 Q 12.1: I saved a filter and tried to use its name to filter the
1486 display; why do I get an "Unexpected end of filter string" error?
1488 A: You cannot use the name of a saved display filter as a filter. To
1489 filter the display, you can enter a display filter expression - not the
1490 name of a saved display filter - in the "Filter:" box at the bottom of
1491 the display, and type the key or press the "Apply" button (that does
1492 not require you to have a saved filter), or, if you want to use a saved
1493 filter, you can press the "Filter:" button, select the filter in the
1494 dialog box that pops up, and press the "OK" button.
1496 Q 12.2: How can I search for, or filter, packets that have a particular
1497 string anywhere in them?
1499 A: If you want to do this when capturing, you can't. That's a feature
1500 that would be hard to implement in capture filters without changes to
1501 the capture filter code, which, on many platforms, is in the OS kernel
1502 and, on other platforms, is in the libpcap library.
1504 In releases prior to 0.9.14, you also can't search for, or filter,
1505 packets containing a particular string even after you've captured them.
1507 In 0.9.14, you can search for, but not filter, packets that have a
1508 particular string; this has been added to the "Find Frame" dialog
1509 ("Find Frame" under the "Edit" menu, or control-F).
1511 In 0.9.15 and later, you can search for those packets using either the
1512 mechanism introduced in 0.9.14 or using the new "contains" operator in
1513 filter expressions, which lets you search the entire packet or text
1514 string or byte string fields in the packet; the "contains" operator can
1515 also be used in expressions used to filter the display.
1517 Q 12.3: How do I filter a capture to see traffic for virus XXX?
1519 A: For some viruses/worms there might be a capture filter to recognize
1520 the virus traffic. Check the CaptureFilters page on the Wireshark Wiki
1521 to see if anybody's added such a filter.
1523 Note that Wireshark was not designed to be an intrusion detection
1524 system; you might be able to use it as an IDS, but in most cases
1525 software designed to be an IDS, such as Snort or Prelude, will probably
1528 The Bleeding Edge of Snort has a collection of signatures for Snort to
1529 detect various viruses, worms, and the like.