On Oct 20, 2010, at 3:42 AM, cco wrote:
> why is wireshark so slow when loading up >500 MB pcaps?
Are you saying that the time taken to read a file, as a function of the size of the file, is discontinuous, with a jump at about 500 MB?
If so, it might be that the memory used by Wireshark for the file (per-packet data structures, reassembled packets, text for columns that aren't generated on the fly, etc.) becomes large enough that your machine starts paging.
> is there any configuration trick to speed this up?
If you're paging:
Make sure you're running Wireshark 1.4.0 or later - *no* columns can have their text generated on the fly in earlier releases, but some can in 1.4.0.
Turning off packet reassembly for various protocols *might* help as well.
