Ethereal-dev: RE: [Ethereal-dev] hethereal: HTML output & control / client-serverissue....

Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.

From: "Fulvio Risso" <fulvio.risso@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:41:40 +0100
Hi.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ethereal-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ethereal-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Carsten Buchenau
> Sent: venerdi 9 gennaio 2004 20.22
> To: Ethereal
> Cc: Hartmut Mueller
> Subject: [Ethereal-dev] hethereal: HTML output & control /
> client-serverissue....
>
>
> Hi there,
>
> I have seen with delight that someone remembered some work I was doing 3
> years ago... the project was called hethereal and is basically a
> modified tethereal to be used as cgi-bin, see
> http://www.ethereal.com/lists/ethereal-dev/200104/msg00201.html
>
> This work was part of my diploma work (I did together with Hartmut
> Mueller and Tim Abenath) where we created a network protocol analyzer
> with an embedded PC running on Linux, sized like a box of cigarettes.
> The idea was to place this little box anywhere inside a Network and then
> connect to the HTML interface from any PC by using *any* JavaScript
> enabled Web browser.
>
> Of course we cared about all relevant security issues etc., but that's
> not the point here...basically, the work relates to two discussions that
> occured on this list recently:
> - HTML output (including the XML/PDML thread)
> - the wish to remotely control ethereal from any computer within a
> network (client-server thread)
>
> Briefly, the old hethereal worked like this:
> - read in capture file and specified read filters (supplied by using a
> form interface)
> - produce ONE output stream, containing ALL packet details from the
> capture (after applying the read filter, of course). This was pure
> JavaScript, creating JavaScript on-the-fly for the details-frame when a
> packet was chosen in the summary frame. So no need for any re-connection
> when choosing a packet and - very important - no need for any
> proprietary Microsoft stuff (maybe this is of special interest to
> Fulvio's students ;-) ).

This has been updated (only in our CVS, though).
In any case, there's another solution to that: use the remote capture, which
is available in Windows, Linux and BSD.
You can find compilable sources in the WinPcap website, version 3.01 alpha.

The remote capture has one advantage: it does not add protocol dissectors
capabilities into the network probe.
So, the machine that is going to capture the traffic has much less to do.
Just capture (and filter), then send data back to the collector.
Among the applications that support remote capture there are Analyzer, ntop,
snort.
Unfortunately, no Ethereal (Guy? ;-)) ).


> So far for what was done 3 years ago... recently, we decided to pick-up
> our work and do a complete redesign of hethereal (by the way, the "h"
> stands for html.... and please do not missspell it as heathereal ;-) ).
>
> To do this, we have identified the following tasks:
> - create XML output. This is done now with PDML (thanks guys, great
> job!); and PSML should do the job for the packet summary output
> - create a stylesheet to transform the XML to HTML (JavaScript),
> complete re-write of the JavaScript code
> - re-write the hethereal binary to include interfaces for capturing,
> choosing capture-files, etc.
>
> I am actually working on the XSL part producing JavaScript code. That's
> quite a chunk, and I will make it available to the list as soon as I
> have something real to show. Right now, I can process the pure PDML
> output into JavaScript, but the tree-view is still missing. I hope that
> this will then clarify where still some work is missing and how anyone
> can help...
>
> Probably I can give you some first results / a preview this weekend.
>
> greetings,
> carsten
>
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