WIRESHARK - The Easy Tutorial

Wireshark Introduction
Last update: 30-01-2008

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Wireshark

Wireshark is the world's most popular network analyzer. This very powerful tool provides network and upper layer protocols informations about data captured in a network.
Like a lot of other network programs, Wireshark uses the pcap network library to capture packets.

The Wireshark strength comes from:
- its easiness to install.
- the simplicity of use of its GUI interface.
- the very high number of functionality available.

Wireshark was called Ethereal until 2006 when the main developer decided to change its name because of copyright reasons with the Ethereal name, which was registered by the company he decided to leave in 2006.

You can get more information about Wireshark on the Wikipedia web site.

If you don't have a graphical interface, you could be interested by "TShark" which is the CLI version of Wireshark.
Tshark supports the same functionnalities as Wireshark