> From: David Hampton
> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 10:18 PM
> I've modified Ethereal so that dissectors can be assigned to TCP and UDP
> ports on the fly. This isn't of any use for well known port numbers,
> but can be incredibly handy for looking at traces where the hosts are
> communicating on dynamically assigned port numbers. I needed this to
> study Microsoft's Universal Plug and Play protocols, which mainly
> consist of HTTP and SSDP on random ports. Hard coding port numbers
> wouldn't help as the port numbers are continually changing.
> This is my first attempt at programming in GTK, so I'd welcome any
> comments. I'm not particularly pleased with the need for a new function
> to connect protocol names and their dissectors, but I couldn't find any
> other way to get this information to put into the dialog box. I did
> this as a variant of the proto_register_protocol routine in hopes that
> developers of new protocol dissectors would be more likely to use it.
> The other choice would have been a second function that dissector
> writers would have to remember to call.
<more deleted...>
1) I like the concept, however I don't like adding another data structure
to hold the dissector information. You could (should?) use the conversation
data structure to implement this functionality. There is an issue with
retaining the settings during a 'redissect'. I would rather see a data
structure for the user information and an initialize routine that creates
the conversations when the 'redissect' happens.
2) Saving dissector address under the protocol id is an excellent idea,
one that has been discussed here before. I would like to see this extended
to all dissectors.
3) This needs to extend beyond the TCP/UDP realm to other protocols.
4) Change the 'protocol to decode as' to a scrolled list. I fear that this
list may grow if your idea is accepted.
Jeff Foster
jfoste@xxxxxxxxxxxx