Wireshark · Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] Ethereal Promiscuous Mode

[Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Lubinski wrote:
> yes im connected to the wireless router running ethereal.

I.e., the machine running Ethereal is capturing on an Ethernet adapter, 
and that adapter is plugged into an Ethernet port on the wireless router?

If so, then the answer to

	So i would have to span a port then?

is "yes", and the answer to

	i still should be able to see the traffic before the switch

is "no, you should only be able to see the traffic that the switch sends 
to you", and the switch, by default, will only send to you traffic it 
thinks your non-promiscuous machine is interested in, which won't 
include traffic sent by, for example, traffic on the wireless network 
being forwarded to the Internet on the modem.  (The switch has no way of 
knowing that the port into which the machine running Ethereal is plugged 
in has an adapter plugged into it that's running in promiscuous mode.)