What is the format for the headers and message body of a TIBCO-RV packet?

Question

I need to decode a packet sent using TIBCO-RV and pull fields out of the header and skip over the message body. I have not been able to any examples or documentation. Does anybody know of any open source applications that might do this or if there is a Wireshark dissector out there somewhere?

Answer 1

Maybe you should try applying for a license and getting the official documentation. According to Wikipedia:

TIBCO provides messaging APIs in C, C++, Java, Visual BASIC , Perl and .NET to receive data feeds on MS Excel spreadsheets and other applications of choice.

Failing that, you could perhaps dive into the TIBCO:RV Perl module.

Answer 2

The methods which TibcoRV implements reliable mutli-cast are propriety, but one would assume easy to reverse engineer. I don't believe any of the official documentation goes into detail on the packet level detail. It's quite easy to get the data out if you have the API.

Several things come to mind:

• Is the client on your machine running? This is required in order to create the multicast subscription (unless you are using broadcast mode). Otherwise, you need to have some client subscribe to the multicast channel, or your switch shouldn't forward the traffic.
• Generally, you will have a single rrd running locally. You have TCP traffic between the RRD and your app. You can use an app like socketsniff to view the traffic between the two.