Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] How to make libpcap/wiretap understand proprietry/standard l

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:58:08 -0700

On Sep 18, 2008, at 8:31 PM, Gaurav1 Jain wrote:

We are using an A104 Sangoma card

I.e.:

	http://www.sangoma.com/products_and_solutions/hardware/digital_telephony_and_data/a104.html

to tap an E1

"Tap" as in "just capture traffic passively", using some special driver that provides packets without the card acting as a regular network interface (of the type that shows up in, for example, ifconfig output), or is it attached as a Linux network interface, so that libpcap is just capturing on it as a standard network interface?

If the former, that means you've modified libpcap; if the latter, then libpcap is treating the card like any other network device, meaning that it determines the DLT_ for the link layer by asking for its ARPHRD_ type and:

if it's a known ARPHRD_ type, mapping it to the appropriate DLT_ type (or perhaps doing the capture in "cooked mode" and using DLT_LINUX_SLL);

if it's not a known ARPHRD_ type, doing the capture in "cooked mode" and using DLT_LINUX_SLL.

and for an E1, this card provides IP interface (as configured).

So what does it mean when it "provides [an] IP interface"? Does that mean that the card supplies IP packets, with link-layer headers stripped off, or does it supply packets with link-layer headers, with the driver processing those headers and then stripping them off and handing them to the IP layer?

So you can say there is no ICMP/UDP/TCP/SCTP/IP kind of DLT attached to traces.

There is no "ICMP/UDP/TCP/SCTP/IP kind of DLT" attached to *any* traces; those are all protocols running atop the link layer. There is a DLT_RAW link layer used for packets where there *is* no link-layer header.

Are you using Sangoma's Wanpipe software? If so, see the diagram at the bottom of

	http://www.sangoma.com/products_and_solutions/drivers_utilities/wan_networking/technical_specifications.html

Where are you connecting to the card in that diagram?