views:

1886

answers:

1

I'm trying to understand how to use Wireshark right now, but the official manual isn't a fun read at all when starting out. Its too detailed, and the details are going right over my head because of the information overloading :)

What are some more didactic tutorials out there?

Thanks!

Edit: WireShark is a network packet sniffer, and it's very useful for debugging network applications. I'm working on networked applications, and plan to use it as a Debugging tool to make my job as a programmer happier. I guess this is about programming related as asking for tutorials about gbd, valgrind or mdb, dtrace, prstat, cat, visual studio or eclipse.

+1  A: 

I wouldn't start with a tutorial on Wireshark itself necessarily. Reading the Wireshark manual first is kind of like reading the help guide to Visual Studio; if you already knew the basics of how programming is done the IDE would naturally make a lot of sense.

If you google and find some tutorials on Ethernet in general (the structure of packets, how TCP and UDP data gets from point A to point B, etc) then the information Wireshark presents will make sense naturally.

For extra bonus points check out Cisco's OSI model - if you can understand each layer of that then you'll have a deep understanding of what Wireshark is telling you.

If you just want a quickstart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bazkLeY6b4

routeNpingme
Thanks, but I know enough about the protocols, but I have no idea how to take advantage of the tool. It looks wonderful, and its got all sort of bells and whistles, but I have no idea what levers to pull :)
Robert Gould
Anything you're trying to do specifically?
routeNpingme
in the long run I want to setup some scripts that will trigger alerts when bad data is sent along the pipes. But first I need to understand the tool in general
Robert Gould
Added link to decent quick beginner video... you may already be above that level though.
routeNpingme
Not bad, I had gotten about that far fumbling my way through the tool, but at least I now know that I wasn't doing stuff totally wrong!
Robert Gould