[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 21, 2006, at 10:13 AM, Tom wrote:

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> Hi, I am looking for the tethereal capture filter
> syntax for capturing multiple ports (2 to 5 ports).

Well, tethereal's not being developed any more (as per the above), but  
TShark is what it was renamed to, and the answer is the same for both.


> With the following command, I am NOT able to capture
> packets: (Note: it says it is capturing but it is
> actually not capturing)
>
> [root@root]# tethereal -f "(port 5060) and (port
> 8688)" -w test13.cap
> Capturing on eth0

How do you know it's not capturing?

The fact that it doesn't print anything only proves it's not capturing  
if you have traffic on your network that's going between ports 5060  
and 8688.  If you have traffic going *to* port 5060 but not coming  
*from* port 5060 or port 8688, or coming *from* port 5060 but not  
going *to* port 5060 or port 8688, or going *to* port 8688 but not  
coming *from* port 5060 or port 8688, or coming *from* port 8688 but  
not going *to* port 5060 or port 8688, that filter will *not* capture  
it.

"And" means "and" in the sense of "the packet is going to or coming  
from port 5060 *and* the *SAME* packet is coming from or going to port  
8688".  "port X and port Y" doesn't mean "capture traffic to or from  
port X and also capture traffic to or from port Y", it means "capture  
a packet that is, at the same time, going to or coming from port X and  
coming from or going to port Y".

If you want to capture traffic to or from port X and also capture  
traffic to or from port Y, that's traffic that's coming from or going  
to port X *OR* coming from or going to port Y, so the filter for  
*that* would be

	port 5060 or port 8688

> The following is a syntax error:
>
> [root@root]# tethereal -f "(port 5060)" and "(port
> 8688)" -w test15.cap

The "-f" flag takes the next command-line token as the filter  
expression; all subsequent command-line tokens are *NOT* part of the  
filter.  Thus, the argument to "-f" is "(port 5060)", and the "and"  
and "(port 8688)" are treated as extra arguments - and extra arguments  
to tshark (and tethereal) are glued together and treated as a capture  
filter, so that's "and (port 8688)", which isn't valid.

TShark needs to catch the case where you have "-f" *and* have extra  
arguments, and complain about that.  (And tcpdump needs to print  
something more meaningful than "syntax error" in that case.)

In addition, the tshark *manual* needs to more clearly document that

	tshark port 5060 or port 8688

captures with "port 5060 or port 8688" as a capture filter.