Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] TZSP Patch

[Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 04:50:37PM -0800, Chris Waters wrote:
> This is a good point. I agree with you that the choice of Ethereal
> WTAP_ENCAP values to specify the encapsulated protocol is flawed. Hmm,
> perhaps version 2 of the protocol can switch to DLT values instead.

...and perhaps version 1 of the protocol should be defined to use
specific values for encapsulated protocols, and Ethereal should map
those to WTAP_ENCAP values *even though most of them happen to be the
same, at this moment, as WTAP_ENCAP values*.

I.e.:

	TZSP_ENCAP_ETHERNET	1
	TZSP_ENCAP_TOKEN_RING	2

and so on; that way, the TZSP protocol is defined without any reference
to Ethereal, so that

	1) tcpdump could map TZSP_ENCAP values to DLT_ values and handle
	   TZSP captures

and

	2) if Ethereal changed the WTAP_ENCAP values it'd still work
	   with TZSP captures.

(Note that not all WTAP_ENCAP values should necessarily have
corresponding TZSP_ENCAP values; values that include a pseudo-header
won't work unless you explicitly define how the information used to
construct that WTAP_ENCAP's pseudo-header information will be stored in
the raw packet data.)