Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] 802.15.4 Decode
From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:45:28 -0700
On Sep 23, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Colin O'Flynn wrote:

It's my understanding Wireshark has 802.15.4 support in it since version
1.0.0. However I'm trying to understand how to enable this...
"Support" for a given protocol doesn't necessarily mean "you can  
encapsulate it in anything"; in the case of 802.15.4, the support was  
put in for the benefit of people who were directly capturing 802.15.4  
packets and writing 802.15.4 packets to a file with no encapsulation.
My hardware shows up as an ethernet interface, so I've routed the raw 802.15.4
packets as data encapsulated by an ethernet header.
What hardware is that?  And, when you say "routed", to what are you  
referring?
I.e., what's the full hardware and software data path from the  
hardware up to either libpcap/WinPcap or whatever other software is  
either feeding packets to Wireshark (over a pipe?) or writing packets  
to a file for Wireshark to read later?  If that data path can be made  
to just pass raw 802.15.4 packets, with no encapsulation, and with a  
DLT_ value of DLT_IEEE802_15_4 (195), it might be possible to have  
Wireshark read those packets without any change.
If I right-click on these received packets and select "decode as", I don't see the "wpan" option. Which is kinda what I was hoping would happen, as that
roughly ends my knowledge of wireshark!
"Decode as" doesn't implement a full NxM matrix where arbitrary  
dissector A can be plugged into arbitrary packet type value B, so that  
won't work.