About Packet Types and File Formats

Topics:
•
Supported Packet Types
•
File Formats for Export

Supported Packet Types

When specifying the Ethernet or IP packet types that you want to monitor or display, you can use either the standard acronym for the type, if supported, or the corresponding hexadecimal representation. To determine the hex value for a protocol, refer to the RFC for the number assigned to it by IANA. The protocol acronyms that SonicOS currently supports are listed in Table 16.

 

Table 16. Supported packet types

Supported Ethernet Types:

ARP

 

IP

 

PPPoE-DIS

To specify both PPPoE-DIS and PPPoE-SES, you can simply use PPPoE.

PPPoE-SES

Supported IP types:

TCP

 

UDP

 

ICMP

 

IGMP

 

GRE

 

AH

 

ESP

 

File Formats for Export

The Export As option on the Dashboard > Packet Monitor page allows you to display or save a snapshot of the current buffer in the file format that you select from the drop-down menu:

 

Libpcap

View the data with the Wireshark network protocol analyzer. Libpcap is also known as libcap or pcap format. A dialog allows you to open the buffer file with Wireshark or save it to your local hard drive with the extension .pcap.

Html

View the data with a browser. You can use File > Save As to save a copy of the buffer to your hard drive.

Text

View the data in a text editor. A dialog allows you to open the buffer file with the registered text editor, or save it to your local hard drive with the extension .wri.

App Data

View only application data contained in the packet. Packets containing no application data are skipped during the capture. Application data = captured packet minus L2, L3, and L4 headers.

Saved files are placed on your local management system (where the management interface is running).

Examples of the HTML and Text formats are shown in the following sections:

•
HTML Format
•
Text File Format
HTML Format

You can view the HTML format in a browser. The following is an example showing the header and part of the data for the first packet in the buffer.

Text File Format

You can view the text format output in a text editor. The following is an example showing the header and part of the data for the first packet in the buffer.