14.9. Simple ASN.1-Based Dissector

The following snippets show the different files that make up a dissector for a “FOO” protocol dissector.

README.txt. 

        FOO protocol dissector
        ----------------------

This trivial dissector is an example for the struggling dissector developer (me included)
of how to create a dissector for a protocol that is encapsulated in UDP packets
for a specific port, and the packet data is ASN1 PER encoded.

The thing that took me a while to figure out was that in order to see my packet
dissected on the detail pane, I had to:
1. Tell the compiler which block in the ASN1 definition is a PDU definition by adding
   FOO-MESSAGE under the #.PDU directive in the foo.cnf file
2. Add a call to dissect_FOO_MESSAGE_PDU() function in the dissect_foo() function in the
   packet-foo-template.c file.

To build and test it:
1. in foo directory, run make
2. run make copy_files
3. add packet-foo.c and packet-foo.h to epan/dissectors/Makefile.common
4. run top level make

CAVEAT: Makefile.nmake was not tested .

You can take it from here :-)

        --00--

foo.asn. 

-- FOO PROTOCOL
--

FOO-PROTOCOL DEFINITIONS AUTOMATIC TAGS ::=
BEGIN

-- General definitions

MessageId       ::= INTEGER (0..65535)
FlowId          ::= INTEGER (0..65535)

MessageData     ::= SEQUENCE {
    name        OCTET STRING(SIZE(10)),
    value       OCTET STRING(SIZE(10))
}

FOO-MESSAGE ::= SEQUENCE {
    messageId           MessageId,
    flowId              FlowId,
    messageData        MessageData
}

END

foo.cnf. 

# foo.cnf
# FOO conformation file

# $Id$

#.MODULE_IMPORT

#.EXPORTS

#.PDU
FOO-MESSAGE

#.NO_EMIT

#.TYPE_RENAME

#.FIELD_RENAME

#.END

packet-foo-template.h. 

/* packet-foo.h
 * Routines for foo packet dissection
 *
 * Wireshark - Network traffic analyzer
 * By Gerald Combs <[email protected]>
 * Copyright 1998 Gerald Combs
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
 */

#ifndef PACKET_FOO_H
#define PACKET_FOO_H

#endif  /* PACKET_FOO_H */

packet-foo-template.c. 

/* packet-foo.c
 * Routines for FOO packet dissection
 *
 * Wireshark - Network traffic analyzer
 * By Gerald Combs <[email protected]>
 * Copyright 1998 Gerald Combs
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
 */

#include "config.h"

#include <glib.h>
#include <epan/packet.h>
#include <epan/conversation.h>

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#include "packet-per.h"
#include "packet-foo.h"

#define PNAME  "FOO Protocol"
#define PSNAME "FOO"
#define PFNAME "foo"
#define FOO_PORT 5001    /* UDP port */
static dissector_handle_t foo_handle;

void proto_reg_handoff_foo(void);
void proto_register_foo(void);

/* Initialize the protocol and registered fields */
static int proto_foo;
static int global_foo_port = FOO_PORT;

#include "packet-foo-hf.c"

/* Initialize the subtree pointers */
static int ett_foo;

#include "packet-foo-ett.c"

#include "packet-foo-fn.c"

static void
dissect_foo(tvbuff_t *tvb, packet_info *pinfo, proto_tree *tree)
{
        proto_item      *foo_item = NULL;
        proto_tree      *foo_tree = NULL;
        int                     offset = 0;

        /* make entry in the Protocol column on summary display */
        if (check_col(pinfo->cinfo, COL_PROTOCOL))
                col_set_str(pinfo->cinfo, COL_PROTOCOL, PNAME);

    /* create the foo protocol tree */
    if (tree) {
        foo_item = proto_tree_add_item(tree, proto_foo, tvb, 0, -1, ENC_NA);
        foo_tree = proto_item_add_subtree(foo_item, ett_foo);

        dissect_FOO_MESSAGE_PDU(tvb, pinfo, foo_tree);
    }
}
/*--- proto_register_foo -------------------------------------------*/
void proto_register_foo(void) {

  /* List of fields */
  static hf_register_info hf[] = {

#include "packet-foo-hfarr.c"
  };

  /* List of subtrees */
  static int *ett[] = {
                  &ett_foo,
#include "packet-foo-ettarr.c"
  };

  /* Register protocol */
  proto_foo = proto_register_protocol(PNAME, PSNAME, PFNAME);
  /* Register fields and subtrees */
  proto_register_field_array(proto_foo, hf, array_length(hf));
  proto_register_subtree_array(ett, array_length(ett));



}

/*--- proto_reg_handoff_foo ---------------------------------------*/
void
proto_reg_handoff_foo(void)
{
    static bool inited = false;

    if( !inited ) {

        foo_handle = create_dissector_handle(dissect_foo,
                                                     proto_foo);
        dissector_add("udp.port", global_foo_port, foo_handle);

        inited = true;
    }

}

CMakeLists.txt. 

set( PROTOCOL_NAME foo )

set( PROTO_OPT )

set( EXT_ASN_FILE_LIST
)

set( ASN_FILE_LIST
	Foo.asn
)

set( EXTRA_DIST
	${ASN_FILE_LIST}
	packet-${PROTOCOL_NAME}-template.c
	${PROTOCOL_NAME}.cnf
)

set( SRC_FILES
	${EXTRA_DIST}
	${EXT_ASN_FILE_LIST}
)

set( A2W_FLAGS  )

ASN2WRS()