Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] What is the maximum data rate supported by wireshark

From: Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:31:45 -0400

Tapas Chatterjee wrote:

Hi,
My System configuration is given below:

    * PC, Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.00 GHz, Dual CPU Dual core,3 GB RAM
    * Linux OS (RHEL 4.0)
    * Ethernet NIC adapter (10/100 Mb/s)

And now my queries are:
1) Can wireshark support the data rate 70- 80 Mbps?
2) What is the maximum data rate supported by wireshark?

Wireshark will capture the traffic as fast as it can depending on your hardware. I don't usually have to worry about data rates so I'm not sure what your machine is capable of.

But, if you're worried about the data rate don't use Wireshark to do the capturing: use 'dumpcap' instead. It simply captures the packets and writes them to a file (or series of files) allowing you to do the (CPU- and memory-intensive) analysis offline.