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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] dumpcap memory usage during 802.11 capture

From: Bill Meier <wmeier@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:34:33 -0400
David S wrote:
Bill Meier <wmeier@...> writes:
I wouldn't have expected dumpcap memory usage to grow very much over time as packets are captured. If it does that sounds like a bug.

However, I'm a little confused:

You indicate that dumpcap memory usage is growing but you then say you're "using the unencryption feature of the packet dissector"
which is not in dumpcap but is in wireshark/tshark.

Wireshark/tshark memory will increase as a function of the number of packets dissected. That's the nature of the beast.

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Ok, I'll run it again and see if I observe the same behaviour. It was definitely dumpcap which had high memory and cpu usage.

Sorry, I mis-understood what was going on with the dissectors, I thought that if I ran the capture through Wireshark the captures would be decoded, I was wrong as the raw packets were output to file (obviously).


I should have been clearer in my original rely.

Wireshark runs dumpcap to do the actual capture. Dumpcap writes to a file and Wireshark reads from the file.

So: When running a cature through Wireshark, the catures are decoded (by Wireshark).