Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] Dissected Header Files.

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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 14:27:25 -0800
On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 03:39:08PM -0500, Parks, Chauni wrote:
> Are they any examples of header files that have been dissected in the
> Ethereal tar ball? I am trying to dissect the payload section of TCP and I'm
> using homegrown middleware header files that will be dissected.

Ethereal doesn't dissect header files - "header file" generally refers
to C or C++ ".h" files.  Ethereal dissects packet headers.

At least half of the Ethereal source tarball is code to dissect packet
headers; if there weren't any such code, Ethereal wouldn't be very
interesting. :-)

If you mean that you want to write a dissector for a protocol that runs
atop TCP, then:

	the README files (such as "README.developer") in the "doc"
	subdirectory of the Ethereal source are a good place to start;

	the "packet-*.c" files in the top-level directory are the
	protocol dissectors.

Look for dissectors for protocols that run atop TCP, as TCP-based
protocols are somewhat special - TCP segment boundaries aren't
meaningful to protocols running atop TCP, so you may have to handle
higher-level packets that cross TCP segment boundaries.