** Reply to message from lshepherd@xxxxxxxxxxxx on Wed, 22 Mar 2000 15:32:24
-0500
Luke,
You don't mention which IBM TR adapter you are using, or whether it is an ISA,
MCA, or PCI adapter which would give some clues. While I do not know how to fix
this problem, or if it can be fixed, here's a brief explanation.
Typically network adapters only "pay attention to" packets destined for that
adapter's mac address. To perform a network trace, the card must be capable of
running in promiscuous mode. Several early IBM cards were not able to function
in promiscuous mode. I am not sure if this is a limitation of the adapter
(chipset - ie Tropic, etc.) or merely of the old ndis drivers were were using on
our DOS and OS/2 boxes at the time. Newer adapters from IBM do not appear to
have this limitation.
There should be nothing the user must to to enable adapter promiscuity, however
you may want to check your docs for the adapter. Also, I'm trying to recall the
behaviour of a token ring mau.
Unless all packets coming into the mau are sent to all ports on the mau and
therefore all stations on the simulated ring, what would guarantee that a
specifc adapter would necessarily receive all packets on the wire? Couldn't
there be packets destined for a machine that appears earlier in the ring,
therefore the loaded token would never reach the analyzer?
> I have Ethereal running on a Linux box with an IBM Token Ring card. I have this
> plugged into our main 16Mb ring between two routers. The reason I am writing,
> is that I am not seeing what I had expected on the Ethereal captures. I only
> see traffic to and from my Linux box and general multicast packets. I do not
John LeMay Jr.
Senior Enterprise Consultant
NJMC, LLC.
The rules have changed... Get paid to surf the web!!!
http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=bdc893
