[Bill Fassler <bill.fassler@xxxxxxxxx>]

Guy et al -

If you go back a year or so ago to when I first came onto the mailing list I was actually sniffing HPNA, but it was HPNA 1.0.  We developed a protocol that rode on top of HPNA and that is the plug-in that I wrote for Wireshark.  I never submitted it because upstream because I didn't think it would be useful for anyone else.  As far as I know there is currently only one product on the market using this proprietary protocol riding on HPNA 1 and if your not involved in the development and troubleshooting process then it wouldn't be useful.

I think the dilemma here is that I used special hardware, a 2Wire USB to phone jack thingamebob that I know works with HPNA 1, but apparenlty doesn't work with HPNA 3 (yet).

So my question to you was perhaps anal now that I ponder it further.  I think if I can find or modify some hardware connector then I am virtually positive that Wireshark could sniff it and then I could dissect
 it.

There is no immediate need for me to do this and now that I realize what might be involved I am hoping I won't ever have to do it, at least not until 2Wire comes out with their next generation USB=>Phone Jack thingygingy that'll do HPNA 3.

Bill

Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  Bill Fassler wrote:
> > Hey guys, I haven't done any Wireshark plugins or anything in quite a 
> > while, but am still part of the mailing list...
> > 
> > Someone just asked me if Wireshark sniffs HPNA 3.0
>
> "Sniffs HPNA 3.0" in what sense?
>
> Wireshark does two things - capture traffic, and dissect and analyze 
> traffic.
>
> The traffic it can capture depends mostly on the capabilities of:
>
>  the hardware it's using to capture;
>
>  the operating system it's running on;
>
>  the driver for the
>  hardware it's using to capture;
>
>  the version of libpcap/WinPcap it's using.
>
> If you want to plug directly into a phone wire or coax cable, without 
> any USB or Ethernet bridge to your HPNA network, and sniff the traffic 
> on that, you will probably need specialized hardware, and, unless that 
> hardware appears to the host as a regular network adapter, you'd 
> probably also need a specialized version of libpcap/WinPcap to talk to 
> that hardware.
>
> If that hardware supplies MAC-layer packets, complete with the 8-bit 
> frame type field, you'd then require changes to Wireshark to be able to 
> capture those frames, much less dissect them.
>
> If, however, you have a USB HPNA adapter on a personal computer, that 
> would probably show up as an Ethernet interface, and if you have a 
> HomePNA-to-Ethernet bridge, that would *definitely* be an Ethernet 
> interface.  In that case, capturing should probably Just Work, although 
> the only
>  frames you'd see would be Ethernet frames.
>
> As for dissection, Wireshark knows nothing about non-Ethernet HPNA 
> frames, and I don't see any dissector that handles HPNA link-layer 
> control frames (Ethertype 0x886c).  Whether you'd get any of those 
> frames with a USB HPNA adapter, or an Ethernet interface plugged into a 
> HomePNA-to-Ethernet bridge, is another matter; if not, and that's the 
> hardware you have, then it's irrelevant whether Wireshark could dissect 
> non-Ethernet HPNA frames or HPNA link-layer control frames, as you won't 
> see them - i.e. Wireshark is just capturing on what it thinks is an 
> Ethernet.
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