Wireshark users can see all the traffic passing through the network. It has a graphic end and some sorting and filtering functions. Tcpdump is a common packet analyzer which allows the user to display other packets and TCP/IP packets, being transmitted and received over a network attached to the computer. Wireshark is similar to tcpdump in networking. There are around 600 contributed authors for the Wireshark product website. Combos continued the work and released the new version of the software. Wireshark has won several industry rewards over the years including eWeek, InfoWorld, PC Magazine and also as a top-rated packet sniffer. He used the contents of the ethereal as the basis. He did not own the Ethereal trademark, so he changed the name to Wireshark. The Network integration services owned the Ethernet trademark.Ĭombos still held the copyright on most of the ethereal source code, and the rest of the source code was re-distributed under the GNU GPL. So, he started writing ethereal and released the first version around 1998.

The protocol at that time did not complete the primary requirements. In the late 1990's Gerald Combs, a computer science graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City was working for the small ISP (Internet Service Provider). The data packets in the Wireshark can be viewed online and can be analyzed offline. Network packets are small, i.e., maximum 1.5 Kilobytes for Ethernet packets and 64 Kilobytes for IP packets. It helps us to know how all the devices like laptop, mobile phones, desktop, switch, routers, etc., communicate in a local network or the rest of the world.Ī packet is a unit of data which is transmitted over a network between the origin and the destination.It also helps to troubleshoot latency issues and malicious activities on your network.It is used by network engineers to troubleshoot network issues.It allows the users to watch all the traffic being passed over the network.It is used by network security engineers to examine security problems.Wireshark can be used in the following ways: It puts the network card into an unselective mode, i.e., to accept all the packets which it receives. It is often called as a free packet sniffer computer application. Wireshark is a free to use application which is used to apprehend the data back and forth. It is also used by network security engineers to examine security problems. It is commonly called as a sniffer, network protocol analyzer, and network analyzer. It is used to track the packets so that each one is filtered to meet our specific needs. Wireshark is an open-source packet analyzer, which is used for education, analysis, software development, communication protocol development, and network troubleshooting.

Wireshark capture setup