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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Recursion depth limit for packet reassembly

From: "Maynard, Chris" <Christopher.Maynard@xxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2019 17:04:02 +0000
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wireshark-dev [mailto:wireshark-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Thomas Wiens
> Sent: Saturday, November 9, 2019 7:18 AM
> To: wireshark-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Wireshark-dev] Recursion depth limit for packet reassembly
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm working on a protocol dissector where I'm using packet reassembly.
> Now I've got a capture with 1026 fragments, which fails to reassemble with the
> standard Wireshark (assert fails) due to the limitation to 500 fragments in
> epan/packet.c:
> #define PINFO_LAYER_MAX_RECURSION_DEPTH 500
>
> For testing I just increased the limit up to 2000. With the change the
> reassembly takes some time when I select the last fragment where it's
> reassembled (about 15 seconds on a rather old 32 bit windows machine, but
> there are also hundreds of zlib blocks which are decompressed in the
> dissector). Other that it takes some time and memory, I didn't notice any
> problems.
>
> Is there any reason why it's limited to exactly 500?
> Would it be possible to make this limit configurable in the Wireshark settings
> dialog?
>
> --
> Best Regards
>
> Thomas Wiens

It's probably limited in an attempt to avoid memory exhaustion.  If you'd like for it to be configurable, then I would suggest opening a Wireshark enhancement bug request at https://bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/ for this.  There's no guarantee that it will be implemented though, but that would probably be the best path forward if it is to be implemented.

- Chris









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