Table of Contents
This is a semi-experimental release intended to test new features for Wireshark 2.2.
Wireshark is the world’s most popular network protocol analyzer. It is used for troubleshooting, analysis, development and education.
The following features are new (or have been significantly updated) since version 2.1.0:
- Added -d option for Decode As support in Wireshark (mimics TShark functionality)
- The Qt UI, GTK+ UI, and TShark can now export packets as JSON. TShark can additionally export packets as Elasticsearch-compatible JSON.
- The Qt UI now supports the -j, -J, and -l flags. The -m flag is now deprecated.
- The Conversations and Endpoints dialogs are more responsive when viewing large numbers of items.
- The RTP player now allows up to 30 minutes of silence frames.
- Packet bytes can now be displayed as EBCDIC.
- The Qt UI loads captures faster on Windows.
The following features are new (or have been significantly updated) since version 2.0.0:
- The intelligent scroll bar now sits to the left of a normal scroll bar and provides a clickable map of nearby packets.
- You can now switch between between Capture and File Format dissection of the current capture file via the View menu in the Qt GUI.
- You can now show selected packet bytes as ASCII, HTML, Image, ISO 8859-1, Raw, UTF-8, a C array, or YAML.
- You can now use regular expressions in Find Packet and in the advanced preferences.
- Name resolution for packet capture now supports asynchronous DNS lookups only. Therefore the "concurrent DNS resolution" preference has been deprecated and is a no-op. To enable DNS name resolution some build dependencies must be present (currently c-ares). If that is not the case DNS name resolution will be disabled (but other name resolution mechanisms, such as host files, are still available).
- The byte under the mouse in the Packet Bytes pane is now highlighted.
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TShark supports exporting PDUs via the
-Uflag. - The Windows and OS X installers now come with the "sshdump" and "ciscodump" extcap interfaces.
- Most dialogs in the Qt UI now save their size and positions.
- The Follow Stream dialog now supports UTF-16.
- The Firewall ACL Rules dialog has returned.
- The Flow (Sequence) Analysis dialog has been improved.
- We no longer provide packages for 32-bit versions of OS X.
- The Bluetooth Device details dialog has been added.
Wireshark is able to display the format of some types of files (rather than displaying the contents of those files). This is useful when you’re curious about, or debugging, a file and its format. To open a capture file (such as PCAP) in this mode specify "MIME Files Format" as the file’s format in the Open File dialog.
New files that Wireshark can open in this mode include:
Apache Cassandra - CQL version 3.0, Bachmann bluecom Protocol, Bluetooth Pseudoheader for BR/EDR, CISCO ERSPAN3 Marker, Edge Control Protocol (ECP), Ericsson IPOS Kernel Packet Header Dissector Added (IPOS), Extensible Control & Management Protocol (eCMP), FLEXRAY Protocol dissector added (automotive bus), IEEE 802.1BR E-Tag, ISO 8583-1, ISO14443, ITU-T G.7041/Y.1303 Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), LAT protocol (DECNET), Metamako trailers, Network-Based IP Flow Mobility (NBIFOM), Nokia Intelligent Service Interface (ISI), Open Mobile Alliance Lightweight Machine to Machine TLV payload Added (LwM2M TLV), Real Time Location System (RTLS), RTI TCP Transport Layer (RTITCP), STANAG 5602 SIMPLE, USB3 Vision Protocol (USB machine vision cameras), USBIP Protocol, UserLog Protocol, and Zigbee Protocol Clusters Dissectors Added (Closures Lighting General Measurement & Sensing HVAC Security & Safety)
Bluetooth OBEX dissector (btobex) was renamed to Obex Dissector (obex), allow to DecodeAs it over USB, TCP and UDP.
A preference was added to TCP dissector for handling IPFIX process information. It has been disabled by default.
The libwireshark API has undergone some major changes:
- The address macros (e.g., SET_ADDRESS) have been removed. Use the (lower case) functions of the same names instead.
- "old style" dissector functions (that don’t return number of bytes used) have been replaced in name with the "new style" dissector functions.
- tvb_get_string and tvb_get_stringz have been replaced with tvb_get_string_enc and tvb_get_stringz_enc respectively.
Wireshark source code and installation packages are available from https://www.wireshark.org/download.html.
Most Linux and Unix vendors supply their own Wireshark packages. You can usually install or upgrade Wireshark using the package management system specific to that platform. A list of third-party packages can be found on the download page on the Wireshark web site.
Wireshark and TShark look in several different locations for preference files, plugins, SNMP MIBS, and RADIUS dictionaries. These locations vary from platform to platform. You can use About→Folders to find the default locations on your system.
Dumpcap might not quit if Wireshark or TShark crashes. (Bug 1419)
The BER dissector might infinitely loop. (Bug 1516)
Capture filters aren’t applied when capturing from named pipes. (Bug 1814)
Filtering tshark captures with read filters (-R) no longer works. (Bug 2234)
Application crash when changing real-time option. (Bug 4035)
Packet list rows are oversized. (Bug 4357)
Wireshark and TShark will display incorrect delta times in some cases. (Bug 4985)
Wireshark should let you work with multiple capture files. (Bug 10488)
Dell Backup and Recovery (DBAR) makes many Windows applications crash, including Wireshark. (Bug 12036)
Community support is available on Wireshark’s Q&A site and on the wireshark-users mailing list. Subscription information and archives for all of Wireshark’s mailing lists can be found on the web site.
Official Wireshark training and certification are available from Wireshark University.
A complete FAQ is available on the Wireshark web site.
Riverbed is Wireshark's primary sponsor and provides our funding. They also make great products.
802.11 Packet Capture
- WLAN packet capture and transmission
- Full 802.11 a/b/g/n support
- View management, control and data frames
- Multi-channel aggregation (with multiple adapters)
Packet Analysis Made Easy
- Visually rich, powerful LAN analyzer
- Quickly access very large pcap files
- Professional, customizable reports
- Advanced triggers and alerts
- Fully integrated with Wireshark
