Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Capturing itouch traffic

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 15:01:01 -0700

On Mar 8, 2009, at 1:30 PM, tommy smith wrote:

Sorry I am new to this but need some advice.

I have a netgear wireless router with an Itouch

I.e., one of these home automation systems?

	http://www.itouch.ws/home.htm

Or some other device?

connected.

"Connected" in what sense? In the sense that the Itouch sends wireless packets to and receives wireless packets from the router, so it's associated with the router's wireless network? The installation manual for the Itouch in question:

	http://www.itouch.ws/PDFs/hasinstallationmanual.pdf

seems to indicate that it needs an Ethernet connection rather than a wireless connection.

My laptop is also connected to the wireless router where I am running the latest version of wireshark.

Again, "connected" in the sense that it's associated with the router's wireless network?

Should I be able to view/capture all the Itouch traffic to the wifi router using WireShark?

If the Itouch is connected to the wifi router over Ethernet, no.

If it's connected over wifi, maybe. It depends on the operating system running on the machine running Wireshark, the Wi-Fi adapter on that machine and its driver, whether your Wi-Fi network is encrypted (WEP, WPA, WPA2) and how it's encrypted and on whether you're willing to lose Wi-Fi connectivity on your laptop while you're capturing traffic.