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

Wireshark-dev: [Wireshark-dev] Dealing with aggregated packets

Date Prev · Date Next · Thread Prev · Thread Next
From: "Darien Spencer" <cusneud@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2018 21:18:30 +0200
Hey devs
There's something that has been bothering me in my wireshark experience and I wanted to bring to discussion
Some protocols can aggregate several payloads such as SCTP and TCP
Viewing those in wireshark could be difficult if many payloads are present.
Specificly the Info column gets long quickly (assuming fences are used)
 
Here is an example - the info column of a SCTP packet with 6 payloads:
https://i.imgur.com/GeA2WmU.png
 
It can be challenging to spot a specific packets in those overpopulated info columns
further more, once you find the right packet by the info column you are served with your next challenge -
finding which of the aggregated packets in the protocol tree is the one you are looking for.
 
I was thinking about introducing a newer concept to wireshark in the form of "sub-packets"
Maybe that's a cosmetic feature to add to the Qt GUI and maybe it required some changes to the dissection engine. I'm not familiar enought with the GUI to tell.
What I had in mind is an option to 'expend' a packet in the main view so its aggregated sub packets are seen in a tree under it
Here's a mock hoping it's get the idea across:
https://i.imgur.com/WfSvg6x.png
 
I can imagine how this might require a change to the way info is saved in the dissectors.
 
 
Does anyone else feel this is an issue when analysing traffic?
Is this a feature fitting the GUI/User experience guidelines of wireshark?
 
Cheers,
Darien