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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Getting involved with Wireshark (was: Re: What Wireshark bas

From: Alexis La Goutte <alexis.lagoutte@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 23:19:39 +0100
On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 8:21 PM, Peter Wu <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
Hi,
> (This is kind of off-topic, start a new thread for such questions.)
>
> On Wednesday 10 December 2014 15:29:03 pogiako wrote:
>> I'm looking for something something to work on for my thesis. I'm a Free
>> Software guy and I thought of contributing to Wireshark is great idea.
>> I'm doing an exploratory project (Like to find something out or to prove
>> something), more on research. I don't code, I only know basic C. I have
>> the K&R 2nd E. book, will that help? I have up to April or May for this.
>
> K&R is sufficient to learn the basics of the C language, but you can't
> learn without actually practising.
>
> I started contributing to Wireshark when I noticed that SSL decryption
> was not working in one case. It turned out that some numbers were
> missing, so I wrote my first Wireshark patch to solve that[1]. Moral of
> the story: you do not really need deep Wireshark knowledge to write such
> a patch and the best way to get involved is to fix an issue you
> encounter while using Wireshark.
>
> A good way to get acquainted with Wireshark is to write a dissector. See
> doc/README.dissector (and doc/README.developer) for details. Once you
> get more familiar, consider skimming the bug tracker
> (https://bugs.wireshark.org/) for issues that can be fixed. Type in your
> favorite protocol/feature (e.g. "ssl", "http" or "gtk") and try to find
> out whether you can fix it or not.
Yes, don't need to known all C to make dissector, you need to look doc...
I no sure if look favorite protocol, like SSL or HTTP, TCP is a good
dissector example...
May be look some more updated dissector like DNS or ICMPv6 (more using
Wireshark Guidelines...)

> A good learning experience even if
> you do not manage to fix the bug.
If i remember, in last sharkfest, there is some discussions about add
"easyhack" or "newcomer" (like Debian BTS) for some bug or feature
will be easy to make and good start to known how to Wireshark works...
But there is only discussions...

> --
> Kind regards,
> Peter
> https://lekensteyn.nl
>
>  [1]: https://bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9144
>
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