Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Capture filters for wlan
From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 13:43:44 -0700
On Jul 2, 2010, at 1:34 PM, G Capps wrote:

>>> Unfortunately, there aren't libpcap capture filters for the TA and RA.
>>> Time for me to dive into libpcap's grammar.y/gencode.c again, to add TA and RA filters....
> 
> I was afraid there might not be any.  But are you suggesting that they
> may be available in a future revision?

I'm saying that libpcap should probably be enhanced to support more filters for 802.11 MAC addresses; if somebody implements them in a future libpcap release, they'll be available in future versions of {at least some Linux distributions, *BSDs that bother to pick up that version of libpcap, Mac OS X if it picks up that version of libpcap, WinPcap, etc.}.

On UN*X, libpcap isn't part of Wireshark, so a future Wireshark revision won't make a difference; you'd have to install an updated version of libpcap yourseflf.  On Windows, Wireshark is packaged with WinPcap, so if a future WinPcap is based on a future libpcap with those additional filters, some future Wireshark release would probably be packaged with that future WinPcap (and you might be able to install it on your system yourself.

I wouldn't expect it to happen soon, however; libpcap, like Wireshark, is free software, so it's up to somebody who has enough Copious Free Time(TM) to work on it.