Wireshark User’s Guide
Wireshark User’s Guide
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Examples
Table of Contents
1. Foreword
Wireshark is one of those programs that many network managers would love to be
able to use, but they are often prevented from getting what they would like from
Wireshark because of the lack of documentation.
This document is part of an effort by the Wireshark team to improve the
usability of Wireshark.
We hope that you find it useful and look forward to your comments.
2. Who should read this document?
The intended audience of this book is anyone using Wireshark.
This book will explain all the basics and also some of the advanced features
that Wireshark provides. As Wireshark has become a very complex program since
the early days, not every feature of Wireshark may be explained in this book.
This book is not intended to explain network sniffing in general and it
will not provide details about specific network protocols. A lot of
useful information regarding these topics can be found at the Wireshark
By reading this book, you will learn how to install Wireshark, how to use the
basic elements of the graphical user interface (such as the menu) and what’s
behind some of the advanced features that are not always obvious at first sight.
It will hopefully guide you around some common problems that frequently appear
for new (and sometimes even advanced) users of Wireshark.
3. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the whole Wireshark team for their assistance.
In particular, the authors would like to thank:
Gerald Combs, for initiating the Wireshark project and funding to do this
documentation.
Guy Harris, for many helpful hints and a great deal of patience in reviewing
this document.
Gilbert Ramirez, for general encouragement and helpful hints along the way.
The authors would also like to thank the following people for their helpful
feedback on this document:
Pat Eyler, for his suggestions on improving the example on
generating a backtrace.
Martin Regner, for his various suggestions and corrections.
Graeme Hewson, for a lot of grammatical corrections.
The authors would like to acknowledge those man page and README authors for the
Wireshark project from who sections of this document borrow heavily:
Scott Renfro from whose mergecap man page
is derived.
Ashok Narayanan from whose text2pcap man page
is derived.
4. About this document
This book was originally developed by
with funds provided from the Wireshark Fund. It was updated by
and more recently redesigned and
updated by .
It was originally written in DocBook/XML and converted to AsciiDoc by
Gerald Combs.
5. Where to get the latest copy of this document?
The latest copy of this documentation can always be found at
6. Providing feedback about this document
Should you have any feedback about this document, please send it to the
authors through .
7. Typographic Conventions
The following table shows the typographic conventions that are used in this guide.
Table 1. Typographic Conventions
Description
File names, folder names, and extensions
C:\Development\wireshark.
Commands, flags, and environment variables
CMake’s -G option.
Bold Monospace
Commands that should be run by the user
Run cmake -G Ninja ...
Dialog and window buttons
Press Launch to go to the Moon.
Keyboard shortcut
Press Ctrl+Down to move to the next packet.
Select Go → Next Packet to move to the next packet.
7.1. Admonitions
Important and notable items are marked as follows:
This is a warning
You should pay attention to a warning, otherwise data loss might occur.
This is a note
A note will point you to common mistakes and things that might not be obvious.
This is a tip
Tips are helpful for your everyday work using Wireshark.
7.2. Shell Prompt and Source Code Examples
Bourne shell, normal user.
$ # This is a comment
$ git config --global log.abbrevcommit true
Bourne shell, root user.
# # This is a comment
# ninja install
Command Prompt (cmd.exe).
&rem This is a comment
&cd C:\Development
PowerShell.
PS$&# This is a comment
PS$&choco list -l
C Source Code.
#include "config.h"
/* This method dissects foos */
static int
dissect_foo_message(tvbuff_t *tvb, packet_info *pinfo _U_, proto_tree *tree _U_, void *data _U_)
/* TODO: implement your dissecting code */
return tvb_captured_length(tvb);
Chapter 1. Introduction
Table of Contents
1.1. What is Wireshark?
Wireshark is a network packet analyzer. A network packet analyzer will try to
capture network packets and tries to display that packet data as detailed as
You could think of a network packet analyzer as a measuring device used to
examine what’s going on inside a network cable, just like a voltmeter is used by
an electrician to examine what’s going on inside an electric cable (but at a
higher level, of course).
In the past, such tools were either very expensive, proprietary, or both.
However, with the advent of Wireshark, all that has changed.
Wireshark is perhaps one of the best open source packet analyzers available
1.1.1. Some intended purposes
Here are some examples people use Wireshark for:
Network administrators use it to troubleshoot network problems
Network security engineers use it to examine security problems
QA engineers use it to verify network applications
Developers use it to debug protocol implementations
People use it to learn network protocol internals
Beside these examples Wireshark can be helpful in many other situations too.
1.1.2. Features
The following are some of the many features Wireshark provides:
Available for UNIX and Windows.
Capture live packet data from a network interface.
Open files containing packet data captured with tcpdump/WinDump, Wireshark, and a number of other packet capture programs.
Import packets from text files containing hex dumps of packet data.
Display packets with very detailed protocol information.
Save packet data captured.
Export some or all packets in a number of capture file formats.
Filter packets on many criteria.
Search for packets on many criteria.
Colorize packet display based on filters.
Create various statistics.
…and a lot more!
However, to really appreciate its power you have to start using it.
shows Wireshark having captured some packets and waiting for you
to examine them.
Figure 1.1. Wireshark captures packets and lets you examine their contents.
1.1.3. Live capture from many different network media
Wireshark can capture traffic from many different network media types -
and despite its name - including wireless LAN as well. Which media types
are supported, depends on many things like the operating system you are
using. An overview of the supported media types can be found at
1.1.4. Import files from many other capture programs
Wireshark can open packets captured from a large number of other capture
programs. For a list of input formats see .
1.1.5. Export files for many other capture programs
Wireshark can save packets captured in a large number of formats of other
capture programs. For a list of output formats see .
1.1.6. Many protocol dissectors
There are protocol dissectors (or decoders, as they are known in other products)
for a great many protocols: see .
1.1.7. Open Source Software
Wireshark is an open source software project, and is released under the
(GPL). You can freely use
Wireshark on any number of computers you like, without worrying about license
keys or fees or such. In addition, all source code is freely available under the
GPL. Because of that, it is very easy for people to add new protocols to
Wireshark, either as plugins, or built into the source, and they often do!
1.1.8. What Wireshark is not
Here are some things Wireshark does not provide:
Wireshark isn’t an intrusion detection system. It will not warn you when
someone does strange things on your network that he/she isn’t allowed to do.
However, if strange things happen, Wireshark might help you figure out what is
really going on.
Wireshark will not manipulate things on the network, it will only “measure”
things from it. Wireshark doesn’t send packets on the network or do other
active things (except for name resolutions, but even that can be disabled).
1.2. System Requirements
The amount of resources Wireshark needs depends on your environment and on the
size of the capture file you are analyzing. The values below should be fine for
small to medium-sized capture files no more than a few hundred MB. Larger
capture files will require more memory and disk space.
Busy networks mean large captures
Working with a busy network can easily produce huge capture files. Capturing on
a gigabit or even 100 megabit network can produce hundreds of megabytes of
capture data in a short time. A fast processor, lots of memory and disk
space is always a good idea.
If Wireshark runs out of memory it will crash. See
for details and workarounds.
Although Wireshark captures packets using a separate process the main interface
is single-threaded and won’t benefit much from multi-core systems.
1.2.1. Microsoft Windows
The current version of Wireshark should support any version of Windows that is
still within its . At the time of writing this includes Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista,
Server 2016, Server 2012 R2, Server 2012, Server 2008 R2, and Server 2008.
Any modern 64-bit AMD64/x86-64 or 32-bit x86 processor.
400 MB available RAM. Larger capture files require more RAM.
300 MB available disk space. Capture files require additional disk space.
1024 × 768 (1280 × 1024 or higher
recommended) resolution with at least 16-bit color. 8-bit color should
work but user experience will be degraded. Power users will find
multiple monitors useful.
A supported network card for capturing
Ethernet. Any card supported by Windows should work. See the wiki pages on
for issues that
may affect your environment.
802.11. See the . Capturing raw 802.11 information may be difficult without
special equipment.
Other media. See .
Older versions of Windows which are outside Microsoft’s extended lifecycle
support window are no longer supported. It is often difficult or impossible to
support these systems due to circumstances beyond our control, such as third
party libraries on which we depend or due to necessary features that are only
present in newer versions of Windows (such as hardened security or memory
management).
Wireshark 1.12 was the last release branch to support Windows Server
2003. Wireshark 1.10 was the last branch to officially support Windows
XP. See the
page for more details.
1.2.2. UNIX / Linux
Wireshark runs on most UNIX and UNIX-like platforms including macOS and
Linux. The system requirements should be comparable to the Windows
values listed above.
Binary packages are available for most Unices and Linux distributions
including the following platforms:
Apple macOS
Debian GNU/Linux
Gentoo Linux
Mandriva Linux
Red Hat Enterprise/Fedora Linux
Sun Solaris/i386
Sun Solaris/SPARC
Canonical Ubuntu
If a binary package is not available for your platform you can download
the source and try to build it. Please report your experiences to
1.3. Where to get Wireshark
You can get the latest copy of the program from the Wireshark website at
. The download page should automatically
highlight the appropriate download for your platform and direct you to
the nearest mirror. Official Windows and macOS installers are signed by
the Wireshark Foundation.
A new Wireshark version typically becomes available each month or two.
If you want to be notified about new Wireshark releases you should subscribe to
the wireshark-announce mailing list. You will find more details in
1.4. A brief history of Wireshark
In late 1997 Gerald Combs needed a tool for tracking down network problems
and wanted to learn more about networking so he started writing Ethereal (the
original name of the Wireshark project) as a way to solve both problems.
Ethereal was initially released after several pauses in development in July
1998 as version 0.2.0. Within days patches, bug reports, and words of
encouragement started arriving and Ethereal was on its way to success.
Not long after that Gilbert Ramirez saw its potential and contributed a
low-level dissector to it.
In October, 1998 Guy Harris was looking for something better than tcpview so he
started applying patches and contributing dissectors to Ethereal.
In late 1998 Richard Sharpe, who was giving TCP/IP courses, saw its potential
on such courses and started looking at it to see if it supported the protocols
he needed. While it didn’t at that point new protocols could be easily added.
So he started contributing dissectors and contributing patches.
The list of people who have contributed to the project has become very long
since then, and almost all of them started with a protocol that they needed that
Wireshark or did not already handle. So they copied an existing dissector and
contributed the code back to the team.
In 2006 the project moved house and re-emerged under a new name: Wireshark.
In 2008, after ten years of development, Wireshark finally arrived at version
1.0. This release was the first deemed complete, with the minimum features
implemented. Its release coincided with the first Wireshark Developer and User
Conference, called Sharkfest.
In 2015 Wireshark 2.0 was released, which featured a new user interface.
1.5. Development and maintenance of Wireshark
Wireshark was initially developed by Gerald Combs. Ongoing development and
maintenance of Wireshark is handled by the Wireshark team, a loose group of
individuals who fix bugs and provide new functionality.
There have also been a large number of people who have contributed
protocol dissectors to Wireshark, and it is expected that this will
continue. You can find a list of the people who have contributed code to
Wireshark by checking the about dialog box of Wireshark, or at the
page on the Wireshark web site.
Wireshark is an open source software project, and is released under the
(GPL) version 2. All source code is
freely available under the GPL. You are welcome to modify Wireshark to suit your
own needs, and it would be appreciated if you contribute your improvements back
to the Wireshark team.
You gain three benefits by contributing your improvements back to the community:
Other people who find your contributions useful will appreciate them, and you
will know that you have helped people in the same way that the developers of
Wireshark have helped people.
The developers of Wireshark might improve your changes even more, as there’s
always room for improvement. Or they may implement some advanced things on top
of your code, which can be useful for yourself too.
The maintainers and developers of Wireshark will maintain your code as well,
fixing it when API changes or other changes are made, and generally keeping it
in tune with what is happening with Wireshark. So if Wireshark is updated
(which is done often), you can get a new Wireshark version from the website
and your changes will already be included without any effort for you.
The Wireshark source code and binary kits for some platforms are all
available on the download page of the Wireshark website:
1.6. Reporting problems and getting help
If you have problems or need help with Wireshark there are several places that
may be of interest to you (well, besides this guide of course).
1.6.1. Website
You will find lots of useful information on the Wireshark homepage at
1.6.2. Wiki
The Wireshark Wiki at
provides a
wide range of information related to Wireshark and packet capture in general.
You will find a lot of information not part of this user’s guide. For example,
there is an explanation how to capture on a switched network, an ongoing effort
to build a protocol reference and a lot more.
And best of all, if you would like to contribute your knowledge on a specific
topic (maybe a network protocol you know well) you can edit the wiki pages by
simply using your web browser.
1.6.3. Q&A Site
The Wireshark Q&A site at
offers a resource where
questions and answers come together. You have the option to search what
questions were asked before and what answers were given by people who
knew about the issue. Answers are graded, so you can pick out the best
ones easily. If your question hasn’t been discussed before you can post
one yourself.
1.6.4. FAQ
The Frequently Asked Questions lists often asked questions and their
corresponding answers.
Read the FAQ
Before sending any mail to the mailing lists below, be sure to read the FAQ. It
will often answer any questions you might have. This will save yourself and
others a lot of time. Keep in mind that a lot of people are subscribed to the
mailing lists.
You will find the FAQ inside Wireshark by clicking the menu item Help/Contents
and selecting the FAQ page in the dialog shown.
An online version is available at the Wireshark website at
. You might prefer this online version, as it’s
typically more up to date and the HTML format is easier to use.
1.6.5. Mailing Lists
There are several mailing lists of specific Wireshark topics available:
wireshark-announce
This mailing list will inform you about new program releases, which usually
appear about every 4-8 weeks.
wireshark-users
This list is for users of Wireshark.
People post questions about building
and using Wireshark, others (hopefully) provide answers.
wireshark-dev
This list is for Wireshark developers. If you want to start
developing a protocol dissector, join this list.
You can subscribe to each of these lists from the Wireshark web site:
. From there, you can choose which mailing
list you want to subscribe to by clicking on the
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Options button under the title of the relevant
The links to the archives are included on that page as well.
The lists are archived
You can search in the list archives to see if someone asked the same question
some time before and maybe already got an answer. That way you don’t have to
wait until someone answers your question.
1.6.6. Reporting Problems
Before reporting any problems, please make sure you have installed the latest
version of Wireshark.
When reporting problems with Wireshark please supply the following information:
The version number of Wireshark and the dependent libraries linked with it,
such as Qt or GLib. You can obtain this from Wireshark’s about box or the
command wireshark -v.
Information about the platform you run Wireshark on.
A detailed description of your problem.
If you get an error/warning message, copy the text of that message (and also a
few lines before and after it, if there are some) so others may find the
place where things go wrong. Please don’t give something like: “I get a
warning while doing x” as this won’t give a good idea where to look.
Don’t send large files
Do not send large files (& 1 MB) to the mailing lists. Just place a note that
further data is available on request. Large files will only annoy a lot of
people on the list who are not interested in your specific problem. If required
you will be asked for further data by the persons who really can help you.
Don’t send confidential information!
If you send capture files to the mailing lists be sure they don’t contain any
sensitive or confidential information like passwords or personally identifiable
information (PII).
1.6.7. Reporting Crashes on UNIX/Linux platforms
When reporting crashes with Wireshark it is helpful if you supply the traceback
information along with the information mentioned in “Reporting Problems”.
You can obtain this traceback information with the following commands on UNIX or
Linux (note the backticks):
$ gdb `whereis wireshark | cut -f2 -d: | cut -d' ' -f2` core && backtrace.txt
If you do not have gdb available, you will have to check out your operating system’s debugger.
Mail backtrace.txt to .
1.6.8. Reporting Crashes on Windows platforms
The Windows distributions don’t contain the symbol files (.pdb) because they are
very large. You can download them separately at
Chapter 2. Building and Installing Wireshark
Table of Contents
2.1. Introduction
As with all things there must be a beginning and so it is with Wireshark. To
use Wireshark you must first install it. If you are running Windows or macOS
you can download an official release at , install it,
and skip the rest of this chapter.
If you are running another operating system such as Linux or FreeBSD you might
want to install from source. Several Linux distributions offer Wireshark
packages but they commonly ship out-of-date versions. No other versions of UNIX
ship Wireshark so far. For that reason, you will need to know where to get the
latest version of Wireshark and how to install it.
This chapter shows you how to obtain source and binary packages and how to
build Wireshark from source should you choose to do so.
The following are the general steps you would use:
Download the relevant package for your needs, e.g. source or binary
distribution.
Compile the source into a binary if needed.
This may involve building and/or installing other necessary packages.
Install the binaries into their final destinations.
2.2. Obtaining the source and binary distributions
You can obtain both source and binary distributions from the Wireshark
web site: . Select the download link and then
select the desired binary or source package.
Download all required files
If you are building Wireshark from source you will
In general, unless you have already downloaded Wireshark before, you will most
likely need to download several source packages if you are building Wireshark
from source. This is covered in more detail below.
Once you have downloaded the relevant files, you can go on to the next step.
2.3. Installing Wireshark under Windows
Windows installer names contain the platform and version. For example,
Wireshark-win64-2.9.0.exe installs Wireshark 2.9.0
for 64-bit Windows. The Wireshark installer includes WinPcap which is required
for packet capture.
Simply download the Wireshark installer from
and execute it. Official packages are signed by the Wireshark
Foundation. You can choose to install several optional components and
select the location of the installed package. The default settings are
recommended for most users.
2.3.1. Installation Components
On the Choose Components page of the installer you can select from the following:
Wireshark - The network protocol analyzer that we all know and mostly love.
TShark - A command-line network protocol analyzer. If you haven’t tried it
you should.
Plugins & Extensions - Extras for the Wireshark and TShark dissection engines
Dissector Plugins - Plugins with some extended dissections.
Tree Statistics Plugins - Extended statistics.
Mate - Meta Analysis and Tracing Engine - User configurable extension(s) of the display filter engine, see
for details.
SNMP MIBs - SNMP MIBs for a more detailed SNMP dissection.
Tools - Additional command line tools to work with capture files
Editcap - Reads a capture file and writes some or all of the packets into
another capture file.
Text2Pcap - Reads in an ASCII hex dump and writes the data into a
pcap capture file.
Reordercap - Reorders a capture file by timestamp.
Mergecap - Combines multiple saved capture files into a single output file.
Capinfos - Provides information on capture files.
Rawshark - Raw packet filter.
User’s Guide - Local installation of the User’s Guide. The Help buttons on
most dialogs will require an internet connection to show help pages if the
User’s Guide is not installed locally.
2.3.2. Additional Tasks
Start Menu Shortcuts - Add some start menu shortcuts.
Desktop Icon - Add a Wireshark icon to the desktop.
Quick Launch Icon - add a Wireshark icon to the Explorer quick launch toolbar.
Associate file extensions to Wireshark - Associate standard network trace files to Wireshark.
2.3.3. Install Location
By default Wireshark installs into %ProgramFiles%\Wireshark on 32-bit Windows
and %ProgramFiles64%\Wireshark on 64-bit Windows. This expands to C:\Program
Files\Wireshark on most systems.
2.3.4. Installing WinPcap
The Wireshark installer contains the latest WinPcap installer.
If you don’t have WinPcap installed you won’t be able to capture live network
traffic but you will still be able to open saved capture files. By default the
latest version of WinPcap will be installed. If you don’t wish to do this or if
you wish to reinstall WinPcap you can check the Install WinPcap box as needed.
For more information about WinPcap see
2.3.5. Windows installer command line options
For special cases, there are some command line parameters available:
/S runs the installer or uninstaller silently with default values. The
silent installer will not install WinPCap.
/desktopicon installation of the desktop icon, =yes - force installation,
=no - don’t install, otherwise use default settings. This option can be
useful for a silent installer.
/quicklaunchicon installation of the quick launch icon, =yes - force
installation, =no - don’t install, otherwise use default settings.
/D sets the default installation directory ($INSTDIR), overriding InstallDir
and InstallDirRegKey. It must be the last parameter used in the command line
and must not contain any quotes even if the path contains spaces.
/NCRC disables the CRC check. We recommend against using this flag.
& Wireshark-win64-wireshark-2.0.5.exe /NCRC /S /desktopicon=yes /quicklaunchicon=no /D=C:\Program Files\Foo
Running the installer without any parameters shows the normal interactive installer.
2.3.6. Manual WinPcap Installation
As mentioned above, the Wireshark installer takes care of installing WinPcap.
The following is only necessary if you want to use a different version than the
one included in the Wireshark installer, e.g. because a new WinPcap version was
Additional WinPcap versions (including newer alpha or beta releases) can
be downloaded from the main WinPcap site at . The
Installer for Windows supports modern Windows operating systems.
2.3.7. Update Wireshark
By default the offical Windows package will check for new versions and notify
you when they are available. If you have the Check for updates preference
disabled or if you run Wireshark in an isolated environment you should subcribe
to the wireshark-announce mailing list. See
details on subscribing to this list.
New versions of Wireshark are usually released every four to six weeks. Updating
Wireshark is done the same way as installing it. Simply download and start the
installer exe. A reboot is usually not required and all your personal settings
remain unchanged.
2.3.8. Update WinPcap
New versions of WinPcap are less frequently available. You will find
WinPcap update instructions the WinPcap web site at .
You may have to reboot your machine after installing a new WinPcap
2.3.9. Uninstall Wireshark
You can uninstall Wireshark using the Programs and Features control panel.
Select the “Wireshark” entry to start the uninstallation procedure.
The Wireshark uninstaller provides several options for removal. The default is
to remove the core components but keep your personal settings and WinPcap.
WinPcap is left installed by default in case other programs need it.
2.3.10. Uninstall WinPcap
You can uninstall WinPcap independently of Wireshark using the WinPcap entry
in the Programs and Features control panel. Remember that if you uninstall
WinPcap you won’t be able to capture anything with Wireshark.
2.4. Installing Wireshark under macOS
The official macOS packages are distributed as disk images (.dmg) containing
the application installer. To install Wireshark simply open the disk image and
run the enclosed installer.
The installer package includes Wireshark, its related command line utilities,
and a launch daemon that adjusts capture permissions at system startup. See the
included Read me first file for more details.
2.5. Building Wireshark from source under UNIX
Building Wireshark requires the proper build environment including a
compiler and many supporting libraries. See the Developer’s Guide at
for more information.
Use the following general steps to build Wireshark from source under UNIX or Linux:
Unpack the source from its compressed tar file. If you are using Linux or
your version of UNIX uses GNU tar you can use the following command:
$ tar xaf wireshark-2.4.5.tar.xz
In other cases you will have to use the following commands:
$ xz -d wireshark-2.4.5.tar.xz
$ tar xf wireshark-2.4.5.tar
Change directory to the Wireshark source directory.
$ cd wireshark-2.4.5
Configure your source so it will build correctly for your version of UNIX. You
can do this with the following command:
$ ./configure
If this step fails you will have to rectify the problems and rerun configure.
Troubleshooting hints are provided in .
Build the sources.
Install the software in its final destination.
$ make install
Once you have installed Wireshark with make install above, you should be able
to run it by entering wireshark.
2.6. Installing the binaries under UNIX
In general installing the binary under your version of UNIX will be specific to
the installation methods used with your version of UNIX. For example, under AIX,
you would use smit to install the Wireshark binary package, while under Tru64
UNIX (formerly Digital UNIX) you would use setld.
2.6.1. Installing from RPMs under Red Hat and alike
Building RPMs from Wireshark’s source code results in several packages (most
distributions follow the same system):
The wireshark package contains the core Wireshark libraries and command-line
The wireshark or wireshark-qt package contains the Qt-based GUI.
Many distributions use yum or a similar package management tool to make
installation of software (including its dependencies) easier.
distribution uses yum, use the following command to install Wireshark
together with the Qt GUI:
yum install wireshark wireshark-qt
If you’ve built your own RPMs from the Wireshark sources you can install them
by running, for example:
rpm -ivh wireshark-2.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm wireshark-qt-2.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm
If the above command fails because of missing dependencies, install the
dependencies first, and then retry the step above.
2.6.2. Installing from debs under Debian, Ubuntu and other Debian derivatives
If you can just install from the repository then use
$ aptitude install wireshark
Aptitude should take care of all of the dependency issues for you.
Use the following command to install downloaded Wireshark debs under Debian:
$ dpkg -i wireshark-common_2.0.5.0-1_i386.deb wireshark_wireshark-2.0.5.0-1_i386.deb
dpkg doesn’t take care of all dependencies, but reports what’s missing.
Capturing requires privileges
By installing Wireshark packages non-root users won’t gain rights automatically
to capture packets. To allow non-root users to capture packets follow the
procedure described in
2.6.3. Installing from portage under Gentoo Linux
Use the following command to install Wireshark under Gentoo Linux with all of
the extra features:
$ USE="c-ares ipv6 snmp ssl kerberos threads selinux" emerge wireshark
2.6.4. Installing from packages under FreeBSD
Use the following command to install Wireshark under FreeBSD:
$ pkg_add -r wireshark
pkg_add should take care of all of the dependency issues for you.
2.7. Troubleshooting during the install on Unix
A number of errors can occur during the installation process. Some hints on
solving these are provided here.
If the configure stage fails you will need to find out why. You can check the
file config.log in the source directory to find out what failed. The last few
lines of this file should help in determining the problem.
The standard problems are that you do not have a required development package on
your system or that the development package isn’t new enough. Note that
installing a library package isn’t enough. You need to install its development
package as well. configure will also fail if you do not have libpcap (at least
the required include files) on your system.
If you cannot determine what the problems are, send an email to the
wireshark-dev mailing list explaining your problem. Include the output from
config.log and anything else you think is relevant such as a trace of the
make stage.
2.8. Building from source under Windows
We strongly recommended that you use the binary installer for Windows unless you
want to start developing Wireshark on the Windows platform.
For further information how to build Wireshark for Windows from the sources
see the Developer’s Guide at .
You may also want to have a look at the Development Wiki
() for the latest available development
documentation.
Chapter 3. User Interface
Table of Contents
3.1. Introduction
By now you have installed Wireshark and are most likely keen to get started
capturing your first packets. In the next chapters we will explore:
How the Wireshark user interface works
How to capture packets in Wireshark
How to view packets in Wireshark
How to filter packets in Wireshark
… and many other things!
3.2. Start Wireshark
You can start Wireshark from your shell or window manager.
Power user tip
When starting Wireshark it’s possible to specify optional settings using the
command line. See
for details.
In the following chapters a lot of screenshots from Wireshark will be shown. As
Wireshark runs on many different platforms with many different window managers,
different styles applied and there are different versions of the underlying GUI
toolkit used, your screen might look different from the provided screenshots.
But as there are no real differences in functionality these screenshots should
still be well understandable.
3.3. The Main window
Let’s look at Wireshark’s user interface.
shows Wireshark as you
would usually see it after some packets are captured or loaded (how to do this
will be described later).
Figure 3.1. The Main window
Wireshark’s main window consists of parts that are commonly known from many
other GUI programs.
The menu (see ) is used to start actions.
The main toolbar (see ) provides quick access to
frequently used items from the menu.
The filter toolbar (see ) provides a way to
directly manipulate the currently used display filter (see
The packet list pane (see ) displays a summary
of each packet captured. By clicking on packets in this pane you control what is
displayed in the other two panes.
The packet details pane (see ) displays the
packet selected in the packet list pane in more detail.
The packet bytes pane (see ) displays the
data from the packet selected in the packet list pane, and highlights the field
selected in the packet details pane.
The statusbar (see ) shows some detailed
information about the current program state and the captured data.
The layout of the main window can be customized by changing preference settings.
for details!
3.3.1. Main Window Navigation
Packet list and detail navigation can be done entirely from the keyboard.
shows a list of keystrokes that will let you quickly move around
a capture file. See
for additional navigation keystrokes.
Table 3.1. Keyboard Navigation
Help → About Wireshark → Keyboard Shortcuts will show a list of all shortcuts
in the main window. Additionally, typing anywhere in the main window will start
filling in a display filter.
3.4. The Menu
Wireshark’s main menu is located either at the top of the main window (Windows,
Linux) or at the top of your main screen (macOS). An example is shown in
Some menu items will be disabled (greyed out) if the corresponding feature isn’t
available. For example, you cannot save a capture file if you haven’t captured
or loaded any packets.
Figure 3.2. The Menu
The main menu contains the following items:
This menu contains items to open and merge capture files, save, print, or export
capture files in whole or in part, and to quit the Wireshark application. See
This menu contains items to find a packet, time reference or mark one or more
packets, handle configuration profiles, and
(cut, copy,
and paste are not presently implemented). See .
This menu controls the display of the captured data, including colorization of
packets, zooming the font, showing a packet in a separate window, expanding and
collapsing trees in packet details, …. See .
This menu contains items to go to a specific packet. See .
This menu allows you to start and stop captures and to edit capture filters. See
This menu contains items to manipulate display filters, enable or disable the
dissection of protocols, configure user specified decodes and follow a TCP
stream. See .
Statistics
This menu contains items to display various statistic windows, including a
summary of the packets that have been captured, display protocol hierarchy
statistics and much more. See .
This menu contains items to display various telephony related statistic windows,
including a media analysis, flow diagrams, display protocol hierarchy statistics
and much more. See .
The items in this menu show Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 wireless statistics.
This menu contains various tools available in Wireshark, such as creating
Firewall ACL Rules. See .
This menu contains items to help the user, e.g. access to some basic help,
manual pages of the various command line tools, online access to some of the
webpages, and the usual about dialog. See .
Each of these menu items is described in more detail in the sections that follow.
Shortcuts make life easier
Most common menu items have keyboard shortcuts. For example, you can
press the Control (or Strg in German) and the K keys together to open the
“Capture Options” dialog.
3.5. The “File” menu
The Wireshark file menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.3. The “File” Menu
Table 3.2. File menu items
Accelerator
Description
This shows the file open dialog box that allows you to load a
capture file for viewing. It is discussed in more detail in .
Open Recent
This lets you open recently opened capture files.
Clicking on one of the submenu items will open the corresponding capture file
This menu item lets you merge a capture file into the currently loaded one. It
is discussed in more detail in .
Import from Hex Dump…
This menu item brings up the import file dialog box that allows you to import a
text file containing a hex dump into a new temporary capture. It is discussed in
more detail in .
This menu item closes the current capture. If you haven’t saved the capture, you
will be asked to do so first (this can be disabled by a preference setting).
This menu item saves the current capture. If you have not set a default capture
file name (perhaps with the -w &capfile& option), Wireshark pops up the
Save Capture File As dialog box (which is discussed further in ).
If you have already saved the current capture, this menu item will be greyed
You cannot save a live capture while the capture is in progress. You must
stop the capture in order to save.
Shift+Ctrl+S
This menu item allows you to save the current capture file to whatever file you
would like. It pops up the Save Capture File As dialog box (which is discussed
further in ).
File Set → List Files
This menu item allows you to show a list of files in a file set. It pops up the
Wireshark List File Set dialog box (which is discussed further in
File Set → Next File
If the currently loaded file is part of a file set, jump to the next file in the
set. If it isn’t part of a file set or just the last file in that set, this item
is greyed out.
File Set → Previous File
If the currently loaded file is part of a file set, jump to the previous file in
the set. If it isn’t part of a file set or just the first file in that set, this
item is greyed out.
Export Specified Packets…
This menu item allows you to export all (or some) of the packets in the capture
file to file. It pops up the Wireshark Export dialog box (which is discussed
further in ).
Export Packet Dissections…
These menu items allow you to export the currently selected bytes in the packet
bytes pane to a text file file in a number of formats including plain, CSV,
and XML. It is discussed further in .
Export Objects
These menu items allow you to export captured DICOM, HTTP, SMB, or TFTP objects
into local files. It pops up a corresponding object list (which is discussed
further in )
This menu item allows you to print all (or some) of the packets in the capture
file. It pops up the Wireshark Print dialog box (which is discussed further in
This menu item allows you to quit from Wireshark. Wireshark will ask to save
your capture file if you haven’t previously saved it (this can be disabled by a
preference setting).
3.6. The “Edit” Menu
The Wireshark Edit menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.4. The “Edit” Menu
Table 3.3. Edit menu items
Accelerator
Description
These menu items will copy the packet list, packet detail, or properties of
the currently selected packet to the clipboard.
Find Packet…
This menu item brings up a toolbar that allows you to find a packet by many
criteria. There is further information on finding packets in
This menu item tries to find the next packet matching the settings from “Find
Packet…”.
Find Previous
This menu item tries to find the previous packet matching the settings from
“Find Packet…”.
Mark/Unmark Packet
This menu item marks the currently selected packet. See
for details.
Mark All Displayed Packets
Shift+Ctrl+M
This menu item marks all displayed packets.
Unmark All Displayed Packets
Ctrl+Alt+M
This menu item unmarks all displayed packets.
Shift+Alt+N
Find the next marked packet.
Previous Mark
Shift+Alt+B
Find the previous marked packet.
Ignore/Unignore Packet
This menu item marks the currently selected packet as ignored. See
for details.
Ignore All Displayed
Shift+Ctrl+D
This menu item marks all displayed packets as ignored.
Unignore All Displayed
Ctrl+Alt+D
This menu item unmarks all ignored packets.
Set/Unset Time Reference
This menu item set a time reference on the currently selected packet. See
for more information about the time
referenced packets.
Unset All Time References
Ctrl+Alt+T
This menu item removes all time references on the packets.
Next Time Reference
Ctrl+Alt+N
This menu item tries to find the next time referenced packet.
Previous Time Reference
Ctrl+Alt+B
This menu item tries to find the previous time referenced packet.
Time Shift
Ctrl+Shift+T
This will show the Time Shift dialog, which allows you to adjust the
timestamps of some or all packets.
Packet Comment…
This will let you add a comment to a single packet. Note that the ability
to save packet comments depends on your file format. E.g. pcapng supports
comments, pcap does not.
Capture Comment…
This will let you add a capture comment. Note that the ability to save
capture comments depends on your file format. E.g. pcapng supports
comments, pcap does not.
Configuration Profiles…
Shift+Ctrl+A
This menu item brings up a dialog box for handling configuration profiles.
detail is provided in .
Preferences…
Shift+Ctrl+P or Cmd+, (macOS)
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to set preferences for
many parameters that control Wireshark.
You can also save your preferences so
Wireshark will use them the next time you start it. More detail is provided in
3.7. The “View” Menu
The Wireshark View menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.5. The “View” Menu
Table 3.4. View menu items
Accelerator
Description
Main Toolbar
This menu item hides or shows the main toolbar, see .
Filter Toolbar
This menu item hides or shows the filter toolbar, see .
Wireless Toolbar
This menu item hides or shows the wireless toolbar. May not be present on some platforms.
This menu item hides or shows the statusbar, see .
Packet List
This menu item hides or shows the packet list pane, see .
Packet Details
This menu item hides or shows the packet details pane, see .
Packet Bytes
This menu item hides or shows the packet bytes pane, see .
Time Display Format → Date and Time of Day:
01:02:03.123456
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display the time stamps in date and time of day format, see .
The fields “Time of Day”, “Date and Time of Day”, “Seconds Since Beginning of
Capture”, “Seconds Since Previous Captured Packet” and “Seconds Since Previous
Displayed Packet” are mutually exclusive.
Time Display Format → Time of Day: 01:02:03.123456
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps in time of day format, see .
Time Display Format → Seconds Since Epoch (): .123456
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps in seconds since
00:00:00, see .
Time Display Format → Seconds Since Beginning of Capture: 123.123456
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps in seconds since beginning of capture format, see .
Time Display Format → Seconds Since Previous Captured Packet: 1.123456
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps in seconds since previous captured packet format, see .
Time Display Format → Seconds Since Previous Displayed Packet: 1.123456
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps in seconds since previous displayed packet format, see .
Time Display Format → Automatic (File Format Precision)
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps with the precision given by the capture file format used, see .
The fields “Automatic”, “Seconds” and “…seconds” are mutually exclusive.
Time Display Format → Seconds: 0
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps with a precision of one second, see .
Time Display Format → …seconds: 0….
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps with a precision of one second, decisecond, centisecond, millisecond, microsecond or nanosecond, see .
Time Display Format → Display Seconds with hours and minutes
Selecting this tells Wireshark to display time stamps in seconds, with hours and minutes.
Name Resolution → Resolve Name
This item allows you to trigger a name resolve of the current packet only, see .
Name Resolution → Enable for MAC Layer
This item allows you to control whether or not Wireshark translates MAC addresses into names, see .
Name Resolution → Enable for Network Layer
This item allows you to control whether or not Wireshark translates network addresses into names, see .
Name Resolution → Enable for Transport Layer
This item allows you to control whether or not Wireshark translates transport addresses into names, see .
Colorize Packet List
This item allows you to control whether or not Wireshark should colorize the packet list.
Enabling colorization will slow down the display of new packets while capturing / loading capture files.
Auto Scroll in Live Capture
This item allows you to specify that Wireshark should scroll the packet list pane as new packets come in, so you are always looking at the last packet.
If you do not specify this, Wireshark simply adds new packets onto the end of the list, but does not scroll the packet list pane.
Zoom into the packet data (increase the font size).
Zoom out of the packet data (decrease the font size).
Normal Size
Set zoom level back to 100% (set font size back to normal).
Resize All Columns
Shift+Ctrl+R
Resize all column widths so the content will fit into it.
Resizing may take a significant amount of time, especially if a large capture file is loaded.
Displayed Columns
This menu items folds out with a list of all configured columns. These columns can now be shown or hidden in the packet list.
Expand Subtrees
This menu item expands the currently selected subtree in the packet details tree.
Collapse Subtrees
This menu item collapses the currently selected subtree in the packet details tree.
Expand All
Wireshark keeps a list of all the protocol subtrees that are expanded, and uses it to ensure that the correct subtrees are expanded when you display a packet. This menu item expands all subtrees in all packets in the capture.
Collapse All
This menu item collapses the tree view of all packets in the capture list.
Colorize Conversation
This menu item brings up a submenu that allows you to color packets in the packet list pane based on the addresses of the currently selected packet. This makes it easy to distinguish packets belonging to different conversations. .
Colorize Conversation → Color 1-10
These menu items enable one of the ten temporary color filters based on the currently selected conversation.
Colorize Conversation → Reset coloring
This menu item clears all temporary coloring rules.
Colorize Conversation → New Coloring Rule…
This menu item opens a dialog window in which a new permanent coloring rule can be created based on the currently selected conversation.
Coloring Rules…
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to color packets in the packet list pane according to filter expressions you choose. It can be very useful for spotting certain types of packets, see .
Show Packet in New Window
This menu item brings up the selected packet in a separate window. The separate window shows only the tree view and byte view panes.
This menu item allows you to reload the current capture file.
3.8. The “Go” Menu
The Wireshark Go menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.6. The “Go” Menu
Table 3.5. Go menu items
Accelerator
Description
Jump to the recently visited packet in the packet history, much like the page history in a web browser.
Jump to the next visited packet in the packet history, much like the page history in a web browser.
Go to Packet…
Bring up a window frame that allows you to specify a packet number, and then goes to that packet. See
for details.
Go to Corresponding Packet
Go to the corresponding packet of the currently selected protocol field. If the selected field doesn’t correspond to a packet, this item is greyed out.
Previous Packet
Move to the previous packet in the list.
This can be used to move to the previous packet even if the packet list doesn’t have keyboard focus.
Next Packet
Move to the next packet in the list.
This can be used to move to the previous packet even if the packet list doesn’t have keyboard focus.
First Packet
Jump to the first packet of the capture file.
Last Packet
Jump to the last packet of the capture file.
Previous Packet In Conversation
Move to the previous packet in the current conversation.
This can be used to move to the previous packet even if the packet list doesn’t have keyboard focus.
Next Packet In Conversation
Move to the next packet in the current conversation.
This can be used to move to the previous packet even if the packet list doesn’t have keyboard focus.
3.9. The “Capture” menu
The Wireshark Capture menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.7. The “Capture” Menu
Table 3.6. Capture menu items
Accelerator
Description
Interfaces…
This menu item brings up a dialog box that shows what’s going on at the network interfaces Wireshark knows of, see ) .
This menu item brings up the Capture Options dialog box (discussed further in ) and allows you to start capturing packets.
Immediately start capturing packets with the same settings than the last time.
This menu item stops the currently running capture, see ) .
This menu item stops the currently running capture and starts again with the same options, this is just for convenience.
Capture Filters…
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and edit capture filters. You can name filters, and you can save them for future use. More detail on this subject is provided in
3.10. The “Analyze” Menu
The Wireshark Analyze menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.8. The “Analyze” Menu
Table 3.7. Analyze menu items
Accelerator
Description
Display Filters…
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and edit display filters. You can name filters, and you can save them for future use. More detail on this subject is provided in
Display Filter Macros…
This menu item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and edit display filter macros. You can name filter macros, and you can save them for future use. More detail on this subject is provided in
Apply as Column
This menu item adds the selected protocol item in the packet details pane as a column to the packet list.
Apply as Filter → …
These menu items will change the current display filter and apply the changed filter immediately. Depending on the chosen menu item, the current display filter string will be replaced or appended to by the selected protocol field in the packet details pane.
Prepare a Filter → …
These menu items will change the current display filter but won’t apply the changed filter. Depending on the chosen menu item, the current display filter string will be replaced or appended to by the selected protocol field in the packet details pane.
Enabled Protocols…
Shift+Ctrl+E
This menu item allows the user to enable/disable protocol dissectors, see
Decode As…
This menu item allows the user to force Wireshark to decode certain packets as a particular protocol, see
User Specified Decodes…
This menu item allows the user to force Wireshark to decode certain packets as a particular protocol, see
Follow TCP Stream
This menu item brings up a separate window and displays all the TCP segments captured that are on the same TCP connection as a selected packet, see
Follow UDP Stream
Same functionality as “Follow TCP Stream” but for UDP streams.
Follow SSL Stream
Same functionality as “Follow TCP Stream” but for SSL streams. See the wiki page on
for instructions on providing SSL keys.
Expert Info
Open a dialog showing some expert information about the captured packets. The amount of information will depend on the protocol and varies from
very detailed to non-existent. XXX - add a new section about this and link from here
Conversation Filter → …
In this menu you will find conversation filter for various protocols.
3.11. The “Statistics” Menu
The Wireshark Statistics menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.9. The “Statistics” Menu
All menu items will bring up a new window showing specific statistical information.
Table 3.8. Statistics menu items
Accelerator
Description
Show information about the data captured, see .
Protocol Hierarchy
Display a hierarchical tree of protocol statistics, see .
Conversations
Display a list of conversations (traffic between two endpoints), see .
Display a list of endpoints (traffic to/from an address), see .
Packet Lengths…
Display user specified graphs (e.g. the number of packets in the course of time), see .
Service Response Time
Display the time between a request and the corresponding response, see .
Colledtd…
Flow Graph…
HTTP request/response statistics, see
IP Addresses…
IP Destinations…
IP Protocol Types…
ONC-RPC Programs
TCP Stream Graph
UDP Multicast Streams
WLAN Traffic
BOOTP-DHCP
3.12. The “Telephony” Menu
The Wireshark Telephony menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.10. The “Telephony” Menu
All menu items will bring up a new window showing specific telephony related statistical information.
Table 3.9. Telephony menu items
Accelerator
Description
SMPP Operations…
ISUP Messages…
UCP Messages…
VoIP Calls…
3.13. The “Tools” Menu
The Wireshark Tools menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.11. The “Tools” Menu
Table 3.10. Tools menu items
Accelerator
Description
Firewall ACL Rules
This allows you to create command-line ACL rules for many different firewall products, including Cisco IOS, Linux Netfilter (iptables), OpenBSD pf and Windows Firewall (via netsh).
Rules for MAC addresses, IPv4 addresses, TCP and UDP ports, and IPv4+port combinations are supported.
It is assumed that the rules will be applied to an outside interface.
These options allow you to work with the Lua interpreter optionally build into Wireshark. See the “Lua Support in Wireshark” in the Wireshark Developer’s Guide.
3.14. The “Internals” Menu
The Wireshark Internals menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.12. The “Internals” Menu
Table 3.11. Internals menu items
Accelerator
Description
Dissector tables
This menu item brings up a dialog box showing the tables with subdissector relationships.
Supported Protocols (slow!)
This menu item brings up a dialog box showing the supported protocols and protocol fields.
3.15. The “Help” Menu
The Wireshark Help menu contains the fields shown in .
Figure 3.13. The “Help” Menu
Table 3.12. Help menu items
Accelerator
Description
This menu item brings up a basic help system.
Manual Pages → …
This menu item starts a Web browser showing one of the locally installed html manual pages.
This menu item starts a Web browser showing the webpage from: .
This menu item starts a Web browser showing various FAQs.
This menu item starts a Web browser showing the downloads from: .
This menu item starts a Web browser showing the front page from: .
Sample Captures
This menu item starts a Web browser showing the sample captures from: .
About Wireshark
This menu item brings up an information window that provides various detailed information items on Wireshark, such as how it’s built, the plugins loaded, the used folders, …
Opening a Web browser might be unsupported in your version of Wireshark. If this
is the case the corresponding menu items will be hidden.
If calling a Web browser fails on your machine, nothing happens, or the browser
starts but no page is shown, have a look at the web browser setting in the
preferences dialog.
3.16. The “Main” Toolbar
The main toolbar provides quick access to frequently used items from the menu.
This toolbar cannot be customized by the user, but it can be hidden using the
View menu, if the space on the screen is needed to show even more packet data.
As in the menu, only the items useful in the current program state will be
available. The others will be greyed out (e.g. you cannot save a capture file if
you haven’t loaded one).
Figure 3.14. The “Main” toolbar
Table 3.13. Main toolbar items
Toolbar Icon
Toolbar Item
Description
Interfaces…
Capture → Interfaces…
This item brings up the Capture Interfaces List dialog box (discussed further in ).
Capture → Options…
This item brings up the Capture Options dialog box (discussed further in ) and allows you to start capturing packets.
Capture → Start
This item starts capturing packets with the options from the last time.
Capture → Stop
This item stops the currently running live capture process ).
Capture → Restart
This item stops the currently running live capture process and restarts it again, for convenience.
File → Open…
This item brings up the file open dialog box that allows you to load a capture file for viewing. It is discussed in more detail in .
File → Save As…
This item allows you to save the current capture file to whatever file you would like. It pops up the Save Capture File As dialog box (which is discussed further in ).
If you currently have a temporary capture file, the Save icon
will be shown instead.
File → Close
This item closes the current capture. If you have not saved the capture, you will be asked to save it first.
View → Reload
This item allows you to reload the current capture file.
File → Print…
This item allows you to print all (or some of) the packets in the capture file. It pops up the Wireshark Print dialog box (which is discussed further in ).
Find Packet…
Edit → Find Packet…
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to find a packet. There is further information on finding packets in .
Go → Go Back
This item jumps back in the packet history. Hold down the Alt key (Option on macOS) to go back in the selection history.
Go Forward
Go → Go Forward
This item jumps forward in the packet history. Hold down the Alt key (Option on macOS) to go forward in the selection history.
Go to Packet…
Go → Go to Packet…
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to specify a packet number to go to that packet.
Go To First Packet
Go → First Packet
This item jumps to the first packet of the capture file.
Go To Last Packet
Go → Last Packet
This item jumps to the last packet of the capture file.
View → Colorize
Colorize the packet list (or not).
Auto Scroll in Live Capture
View → Auto Scroll in Live Capture
Auto scroll packet list while doing a live capture (or not).
View → Zoom In
Zoom into the packet data (increase the font size).
View → Zoom Out
Zoom out of the packet data (decrease the font size).
Normal Size
View → Normal Size
Set zoom level back to 100%.
Resize Columns
View → Resize Columns
Resize columns, so the content fits into them.
Capture Filters…
Capture → Capture Filters…
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and edit capture filters. You can name filters, and you can save them for future use. More detail on this subject is provided in .
Display Filters…
Analyze → Display Filters…
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to create and edit display filters. You can name filters, and you can save them for future use. More detail on this subject is provided in .
Coloring Rules…
View → Coloring Rules…
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to color packets in the packet list pane according to filter expressions you choose. It can be very useful for spotting certain types of packets. More detail on this subject is provided in .
Preferences…
Edit → Preferences
This item brings up a dialog box that allows you to set preferences for many parameters that control Wireshark.
You can also save your preferences so Wireshark will use them the next time you start it. More detail is provided in
Help → Contents
This item brings up help dialog box.
3.17. The “Filter” Toolbar
The filter toolbar lets you quickly edit and apply display filters. More
information on display filters is available in .
Figure 3.15. The “Filter” toolbar
Table 3.14. Filter toolbar items
Toolbar Icon
Toolbar Item
Description
Brings up the filter construction dialog, described in .
Filter input
The area to enter or edit a display filter string, see . A syntax check of your filter string is done while you are typing. The background will turn red if you enter an incomplete or invalid string, and will become green when you enter a valid string. You can click on the pull down arrow to select a previously-entered filter string from a list. The entries in the pull down list will remain available even after a program restart.
After you’ve changed something in this field, don’t forget to press the Apply
button (or the Enter/Return key), to apply this filter string to the display.
This field is also where the current filter in effect is displayed.
Expression…
The middle button labeled “Add Expression…” opens a dialog box that lets you edit a display filter from a list of protocol fields, described in
Reset the current display filter and clears the edit area.
Apply the current value in the edit area as the new display filter.
Applying a display filter on large capture files might take quite a long time.
3.18. The “Packet List” Pane
The packet list pane displays all the packets in the current capture file.
Figure 3.16. The “Packet List” pane
Each line in the packet list corresponds to one packet in the capture file. If
you select a line in this pane, more details will be displayed in the “Packet
Details” and “Packet Bytes” panes.
While dissecting a packet, Wireshark will place information from the protocol
dissectors into the columns. As higher level protocols might overwrite
information from lower levels, you will typically see the information from the
highest possible level only.
For example, let’s look at a packet containing TCP inside IP inside an Ethernet
packet. The Ethernet dissector will write its data (such as the Ethernet
addresses), the IP dissector will overwrite this by its own (such as the IP
addresses), the TCP dissector will overwrite the IP information, and so on.
There are a lot of different columns available. Which columns are displayed can
be selected by preference settings, see .
The default columns will show:
No. The number of the packet in the capture file. This number won’t
change, even if a display filter is used.
Time The timestamp of the packet. The presentation format of this
timestamp can be changed, see .
Source The address where this packet is coming from.
Destination The address where this packet is going to.
Protocol The protocol name in a short (perhaps abbreviated) version.
Length The length of each packet.
Info Additional information about the packet content.
The first column shows how each packet is related to the selected packet. For
example, in the image above the first packet is selected, which is a DNS
request. Wireshark shows a rightward arrow for the request itself, followed by a
leftward arrow for the response in packet 2. Why is there a dashed line? There
are more DNS packets further down that use the same port numbers. Wireshark
treats them as belonging to the same conversation and draws a line connecting
Table 3.15. Related packet symbols
First packet in a conversation.
Part of the selected conversation.
Not part of the selected conversation.
Last packet in a conversation.
The selected packet acknowledges this packet.
The selected packet is a duplicate acknowledgement of this packet.
The selected packet is related to this packet in some other way, e.g. as part
of reassembly.
The packet list has an Intelligent Scrollbar which shows a miniature map of
nearby packets. Each
of the scrollbar corresponds to a single packet, so the number of packets shown
in the map depends on your physical display and the height of the packet list. A
tall packet list on a high-resolution (“Retina”) display will show you quite a
few packets. In the image above the scrollbar shows the status of more than 500
packets along with the 15 shown in