Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Running (T)Ethereal forever

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From: Richard Sharpe <rsharpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 16:46:50 -0700 (PDT)
On Thu, 2 Sep 2004, Ober Heim wrote:

> We run a 24/7 tethereal setup, and find restarts every 10 minutes fix the
> memory growth problem.
>
> One major issue is the use of conversations in many different dissectors
> to track request/replies.
> This could require some major rewrites to start dropping items off the
> list.
>
> But none the less would be nice to have it handle long term streams in a
> better fashion. However it would be up to the dissector writers to do so.

What's wrong with using tcpdump?

> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004, Pierre JUHEN wrote:
>
> > I would like to run tethereal on a PC "forever".
> >
> > I use it to capture on an ethereal interface, filter some packets, and them
> > on the network through another interface.
> >
> > However, tethereal consumes memory for each packet, and crashes when
> > there is no more
> > memory...
> >
> > Would it be possible to have an option where tethereal releases the
> > memory used by the capture,
> > after either a  number of packets, or a certain amount of time.
> >
> > This would be also useful for ethereal in graphical mode, but I guess
> > it's more difficult.
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Pierre Juhen

Regards
-----
Richard Sharpe, rsharpe[at]richardsharpe.com, rsharpe[at]samba.org,
sharpe[at]ethereal.com, http://www.richardsharpe.com