https://bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=6645
--- Comment #14 from Mike Garratt <wireshark@xxxxxxxxx> 2012-09-25 04:52:10 PDT ---
Looking at the MSDN link you provided, I think Microsoft have used the term
"friendly name" in two ways.
1. The NDIS OID_GEN_FRIENDLY_NAME method is about the "friendly name" for the
Miniport driver - the examples in the MSDN article match what winpcap already
gives us as the description.
2. AdapterAddresses returned by GetAdaptersAddresses() provides access to the
friendlyname for the adapter which matches the interface name in
"start->run->ncpa.cpl" - e.g. "Local Area Connection".
MSDN documentation for more recent API functions such as
ConvertInterfaceLuidToAlias() appear to be refering to "Local Area Connection"
as the interface alias name.
The wireshark gui should be able to display both the interface alias name and
the vendor description as available in places such as the Interface Details
dialog.
Assuming there is agreement that it should be able to display both, any
thoughts on/refinement to the following approach:
0. Retrieve the interface alias names with the method I outlined in comment 7.
1. Extend the if_info_t type to include char * interface_alias; in addition to
name and description. Where description = vendor description/miniport driver
name as returned by winpcap.
2. Extend dumpcap so it returns both the interface alias and vendor description
when programmatically queried by the wireshark gui for the interface list.
3. Change dumpcap so it uses alias in place of description if an alias is
known. areas this would apply to include commands such as "dumpcap -D" and
"dumpcap -i"
4. Change dumpcap so if an alias is known, it will use that as the basis for
the autogenerated filename in place of the GUID based filename.
5. Extend the GUI/interface details to show the alias and vendor description in
the Interface Details dialog
6. Change the gui to use the interface alias in place of the vendor description
if it is available (best approach for this is something to discuss based on a
review of the existing code)
7. Possibly change the code to no longer show the GUID on the front page of the
gui when the alias is known - wireshark should down play the guid in user
interfaces when it isn't needed to uniquely identify an interface. The GUID
remains in the gui in places such as interface detail.
8. Further options will open up such as recording the interface alias name in
the pcapng capture data.
All of the above would only have an impact on the behaviour of windows builds
but OS specific code could be minimised through the simple extension of the
if_info_t type.
Keeping the initial scope tight, I am thinking numbers 0 through 3 are an
initial patch we can build on.
Thoughts?
- Mike
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