• Wireshark is one of the world’s foremost network protocol analyzer,

and is the de facto standard across many industries and educational

institutions. Wireshark development thrives thanks to the
contributions of networking experts across the globe. It is the
continuation of a project that started in 1998
• Some features of Wireshark:
– Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time
– Live capture and offline analysis
– Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many
others
– Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility
– Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Pcap NG, Catapult
DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer®
(compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments
Observer, NetScreen snoop, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer,
Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets
EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others
– Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly
– Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB,
Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platfrom)
– Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3,
SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2
• Wireshark is extremely useful when it comes to network
troubleshooting as it capture the packets and you can have a detail
look into them checking if everything is OK in parameters, message,
format and so on. The problem is that if you capture the packets
traveling through a backbone router you will end having huge file (
yes, even up to 1G if you capture long enough) and a lot packets
details in it. From this tons of information maybe you are interested in
only a minor part like BGP traffic or a certain IP source and
destination. Here is the part where Wireshark filters come into play.
• There are 2 type of Wireshark filters:

• – DISPLAY FILTERS – after you capture a lot of information, they help

you to visualize only the packets that you are interested in
• – CAPTURE FILTERS – from the beginning you know what is the
interest for you and capture only those packets
• I would recommed to use the Capture filters, when you know what
are you looking for and you run the capture for more than couple of
hours in a heavy traffic environment. This will help you stay in a
reasonable amount on information being captured and file size.
If you run the packet capture for less time, like one or two hours, and
you are not very sure what are you looking for, then I recommend to
capture all the traffic and then use Display filters to visualize only the
information that you are searching for.
• a list with the most useful Wireshark display filters. I compiled this list
based on my personal experience and on my friends and colleagues
advices. If you think that something is missing, or you are using a
Display filter that might be useful for others please feel free to add it
to a Comment to this topic and I will update the list. In one of the
future posts I will show you how to capture the traffic and apply some
of this filters.
DISPLAY FILTER EXPLANATION EXAMPLE
source or destination eth.addr ==
eth.addr
mac-address 00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb
eth.src ==
eth.src source mac-address
00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb
destination mac- eth.dst ==
eth.dst
address 00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb
arp.dst.hw_mac ==
arp.dst.hw_mac target mac-address
00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb
arp.dst.proto_ipv4 ==
arp.dst.proto_ipv4 target IPv4 address
10.10.10.10
 arp.src.hw_mac ==
arp.src.hw_mac sender mac-address
00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb
arp.src.proto_ipv4 ==
arp.src.proto_ipv4 sender IPv4 address
10.10.10.10
vlan.id vlan ID vlan.id == 16
source or destination ip.addr ==
ip.addr
IPv4 address 10.10.10.10
destination IPv4 ip.addr ==
ip.dst
address 10.10.10.10
ip.src source IPv4 address ip.src == 10.10.10.10
ip.proto IP protocol (decimal) ip.proto == 1
source or destination
ipv6.addr ipv6.addr == 2001::5
IPv6 address
ipv6.src source IPv6 address ipv6.addr == 2001::5
destination IPv6
ipv6.dst ipv6.dst == 2001::5
address
source or destination
tcp.port tcp.port == 20
TCP port
tcp.dstport destination TCP port tcp.dstport == 80
tcp.srcport source TCP port tcp.srcport == 60234
source or destination
udp.port udp.port == 513
UDP port
udp.dstport destination UDP port udp.dstport == 513
udp.srcport source UDP port udp.srcport == 40000
Frame-Relay DLCI
fr.dlci fr.dlci == 112
number
ICMP type code
icmp.type icmp.type == 8
(decimal)
vtp.vlan_info.vlan_na vtp.vlan_info.vlan_na
VLAN name
me me == TEST
BGP id (IPv4 bgp.originator_id ==
bgp.originator_id
address) 192.168.10.15
BGP Next Hop (IPv4 bgp.next_hop ==
bgp.next_hop
address) 192.168.10.15
rip.ip RIP IPv4 address rip.ip == 200.0.2.0
 OSPF advertising ospf.advrouter ==
ospf.advrouter
router ID 192.168.170.8
EIGRP autonomous
eigrp.as eigrp.as == 100
system number
HSRP virtual IP hsrp.virt_ip ==
hsrp.virt_ip
address 192.168.23.250
VRRP virtual IP vrrp.ip_addr ==
vrrp.ip_addr
address 192.168.23.250
ZEBRA destination zebra.dest4 ==
zebra.dest4
IPv4 address 10.10.10.10
source or destination wlan.addr ==
wlan.addr
MAC address 00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb
wlan.sa ==
wlan.sa source MAC address
00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb
destination MAC wlan.da ==
wlan.da
address 00:1a:6b:ce:fc:bb