Huge thanks to our Platinum Members Endace and LiveAction,
and our Silver Member Veeam, for supporting the Wireshark Foundation and project.

Wireshark-bugs: [Wireshark-bugs] [Bug 6302] OSPF LSA length minimum values

Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 11:33:00 +0000

Comment # 12 on bug 6302 from
Perhaps I need to explain the intended purpose of this change.

My work with network protocols sometimes involves packets that are indeed
malformed (as a result of a bug or even on intent). In such case having the
packet analyzer auto-flagged all packets that violate the spec is very helpful.

Filing of this issue two years ago was motivated by the fact that Wireshark
1.4.8 didn't detect some (if not all) of the OSPF anomalies listed herein. I
have just tested Wireshark 1.10.2 and it flags packet 27 of the 1st capture as
malformed, fine. Yet it does not flag packet 19 of the same capture, which is
against the spec (respective comment explains it). Packet 29 of the 2nd capture
is correctly flagged malformed (without further explanation however).

The captures were produced specifically on request, they don't belong to a
compliant OSPFv2 exchange. I suggest not only flagging the packet as malformed
when any of the constraints listed here are not met but specifically mentioning
that the length falls below the known threshold.

Do you need the final OSPFv2 constraint table?


You are receiving this mail because:
  • You are watching all bug changes.