Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] about filter

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From: Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 09:45:40 -0700
Alparslan Ozturk wrote:

How can I see OSI model layer4 package in ethereal. For examples: I want to see three-way handshake and
especially virtual connections between two
hosts.(established connections)

Well, the layers are, as I remember:

	1 - physical link layer
	2 - logical link layer
	3 - network layer
	4 - transport layer
	5 - session layer
	6 - presentation layer
	7 - application layer

so you mean "how can I see transport layer packets in Ethereal?"

If the transport layer is TCP, the way you see them is that you load a capture containing those packets in Ethereal, or you capture traffic with them in Ethereal. There's nothing special that needs to be done to see the TCP 3-way handshake, other than having the SYN, SYN+ACK, and ACK in the capture file.

Ethereal can also dissect the OSI transport protocol when it runs atop the connectionless network protocol. It will recognize packets running atop CLNP as COTP or CLTP if either

	1) COTP or CLTP is running atop the "inactive subset" of CLNP

or

2) the last byte of the destination CLNP address is the value specified as the "NSAP selector for Transport Protocol" preference for CLNP

or

3) the "Always try to decode NSDU as transport PDUs" preference for CLNP is set.

If you're thinking of some other transport layer protocol, *and* what you mean by "how can I see" is "Ethereal's not showing it to me when I capture traffic that contains that protocol or give it a capture file that contains that protocol; what do I need to do to fix this?", you'd need to tell us what particular transport layer protocol that is (and what protocols it's running on top of).