Shark SE400 User's Guide download pdf (Page 12)

Introduction

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 https://

wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/NetworkMedia.

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 Section 5.2.2, “Input File Formats”.

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 Section 5.3.2, “Output File Formats”.

1.1.6. Many protocol decoders

There are protocol decoders (or dissectors, as they are known in Wireshark) for a great many protocols:

see Appendix C, Protocols and Protocol Fields.

1.1.7. Open Source Software

Wireshark is an open source software project, and is released under the GNU General Public License

(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 https://wiki.wireshark.org/KnownBugs/

OutOfMemory for details and workarounds.

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Shark SE400 User's Guide Page 12