Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] Dialup

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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 11:49:45 -0700

On Sep 18, 2003, at 10:21 AM, Rick & Diane Bieniek wrote:

I just loaded Ethereal and am trying to capture data from my modem connection. The port currently being monitored by the application is the Ethernet card.  Is there a way to add the modem so I can monitor the incoming data for my dialup connection?  I loaded 0.9.15 withWinPcap3.01 on Windows XP.

	http://www.ethereal.com/faq.html#q5.16

Note particularly where it says:

o WinPcap doesn't support PPP WAN interfaces on Windows NT/2000/XP/Server, so Ethereal cannot capture packets on those devices when running on Windows NT/2000/XP/Server. Regular dial-up lines, ISDN lines, and various other lines such as T1/E1 lines are all PPP interfaces. This may cause the interface not to show up on the list of interfaces in the "Capture Options" dialog.

See also the WinPcap FAQ on this:

	http://winpcap.polito.it/misc/faq.htm#Q-6

WinPcap 3.x very explicitly refuses to handle PPP interfaces, because they had so many problems with using them (including system crashes):

	http://winpcap.polito.it/misc/changelog.htm

"Version 3.0 beta, 10 feb 03

		...

◦ due to the large number of messages reporting problems (blue screens) with VPNs, PPTP and such connections, we have disabled the support for NdisWan adapters. As a consequence, it is not possible to capture from PPP (neither NdisWanIp, nor NdisWanBh, nor NdisWanBfIn/Out...). At the moment we have no plans to fix the problem with VPNs, PPTP, PPP unless we get a generous sponsorship."

(Note that "we" means the WinPcap developers, not the Ethereal developers. Ethereal is at the mercy of libpcap/WinPcap, and the OS facilities atop which they run, for capturing.)