Developing Protocol Dissectors for Ethereal
Ethereal is a GTK+-based package capture and analysis program. It appeared
on the scene in late 1998, and blossomed into a very useful tool during
1999 as a large number of protocol decoders were developed. Ethereal is
GPL'd software and will stay that way.
While it is very helpful to administrators in troubleshooting networking
problems, it is also indispensable to developers of software implementing
protocols, as it allows them to see exactly what is going on on the wire
with their implementation. Indeed, members of the IETF have recognized the
benefits of Ethereal, and two new protocols have been slated to have
Ethereal dissectors to help implementors of those protocols.
Ethereal is developed by a core team of people around the world who use CVS
to manage their source tree. Contributions are welcome from anyone, and
many people have contributed dissectors.
Since all the source code or Ethereal is available, it is relatively simple
to develop a dissector for new protocols, but the initial hurdle is gaining
enough familiarity with the source code to be able to produce an effective
result, as well as understanding all the features of Ethereal.
This workshop/tutorial will lead participants through the process of
developing dissectors for Ethereal. Participants will develop two
dissectors during the workshop/tutorial, and the presented will motivate
many of the issues that arise, as well as providing information on the
limitations of Ethereal.
About Richard Sharpe
Richard Sharpe has been an open source contributor for a long time, and is
a member of the Samba team and the Ethereal team. His contributions to
Ethereal include dissectors for POP, TFTP, FTP, Telnet and SMB.
Richard has also been involved in writing books on Samba. He made a
significant contribution to SAMS Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours, and is
the lead author of Special Edition, Using Samba, due out in July 2000.
Regards
-------
Richard Sharpe, sharpe@xxxxxxxxxx
Samba (Team member, www.samba.org), Ethereal (Team member, www.zing.org)
Co-author, SAMS Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours
Author: First Australian 5-day, intensive, hands-on Linux SysAdmin course
Author: First Australian 2-day, intensive, hands-on Samba course
