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Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Wireshark for Beacon Sniffing

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:40:49 -0800

On Jan 21, 2009, at 3:33 PM, Johne Cookcely wrote:

Hi! I am moving to wireshark for use in sniffing wireless 802.11 beacons. My team used to use Wildpackets OminPeek. However, I am having an issue. Wireshark averages 166305 beacons/hr in my location, channel 6, while OmniPeek averaged 293149 beacon/hr, same location, same channel, same card.

Same operating system?  Probably not, as:

	OmniPeek is Windows-only;

Wireshark uses WinPcap on Windows to capture packets, and WinPcap uses NDIS to see packets;

Windows prior to Vista doesn't support supplying management packets such as beacons to NDIS, and Vista supports it but WinPcap doesn't support that mechanism;

so you're probably not running Wireshark on Windows to capture beacons (you'd get 0 beacons/hr on Windows unless you're using an AirPcap adapter, and OmniPeek doesn't support AirPcap adapters, as far as I know).

What version of what OS are you running Wireshark on?