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Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] More about conversation...

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From: Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 03:44:35 -0800
fabio matturro wrote:

One more question: My protocol has a user-defined option which allows it to switch from UDP to TCP(the negotitation is carried on UDP). Should I still use conversations to keep track of this option?

And:

1) How can I make my dissector pay attention to TCP traffic (actually UDP packets are still used in the protocol, it's not a switch from UDP to TCP. TCP is used together with UDP)

2) What if I start capturing once the negotation is terminated?

Maybe I'd better write a heuristic similar to that written for UDP traffic. Then I'd have no need for conversations, i think, but I'm afraid I'd slow the dissecting process.

If your protocol *always* uses a standard TCP port number, you could register your dissector for that TCP port number.

Otherwise, if the TCP negotiation specifies the port number to be used on one side of the conversation, you could create a conversation (if you know the IP addresses that will be used on both sides) and make the dissector for your protocol the dissector for that conversation.

Otherwise, you'll probably need a heuristic. Each heuristic can slow dissection down, but if the heuristics don't do too much, they shouldn't slow dissection down too much.

If you start capturing once the negotiation is terminated, you'll either

	1) need to use a heuristic;

	2) need a preference setting to specify the port number to use;

3) need to register the dissector as one that *could* be used with TCP by calling dissector_add_handle(), and then use the "Decode As" menu to specify via the UI that a particular port number should be decoded with your dissector.