Computer Communication Networks [COMM- Telecom 6th

02626] Semester

LAB EXPERIMENT NO.01

INTRODUCTION TO WIRESHARK AND LAYERED PROTOCOL

Student Name: Roll No:

OBJECTIVES:
 This lab will introduce you to an application for capturing traffic on networks. By
“capturing", we mean record and view the details of every packet sent and received by
the computer.

EQUIPMENT REQUIRED:
 Desktop Computer/Laptop
 Wireshark Software
This lab has three parts. The first part includes simple tasks that let you get familiar with the
basic operations of Wireshark. The second part will introduce some handy networking tools,
which will be used in the following labs. The third part will focus on how protocols and layering
are represented in packets by exploring the sniffed packet traces.

1.1 Wireshark:
The application for capturing traffic on networks is called Wireshark. Wireshark is a free and
open-source network protocol analyzer that runs on various operating systems including Linux,
Unix, Mac, and Windows. Packet capture applications are useful to inspect the details of the
network operations being performed by your computer (and the network), thereby used to
diagnose problems. The basic tool for observing the messages exchanged between executing
protocol entities is called a packet sniffer. As the name suggests, a packet sniffer captures
(“sniffs”) messages being sent/received from/by your computer; it will also typically store and/or
display the contents of the various protocol fields in these captured messages. A packet sniffer
itself is passive. It observes messages being sent and received by applications and protocols
running on your computer, but never sends packets itself. Similarly, received packets are never
explicitly addressed to the packet sniffer. Instead, a packet sniffer receives a copy of packets that
are sent/received from/by application and protocols executing on your machine.

Figure 1 shows the structure of a packet sniffer. At the right of Figure 1 are the protocols (in this
case, Internet protocols) and applications (such as a web browser or ftp client) that normally run
on your computer. The packet sniffer, shown within the dashed rectangle in Figure 1 is an
addition to the usual software in your computer, and consists of two parts. The packet capture
library receives a copy of every link-layer frame that is sent from or received by your computer.
Recall from the discussion from section 1.5 in the text (Figure 1.241) that messages exchanged

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by higher layer protocols such as HTTP, FTP, TCP, UDP, DNS, or IP all are eventually
encapsulated in link-layer frames that are transmitted over physical media such as an Ethernet
cable. In Figure 1, the assumed physical media is an Ethernet, and so all upper-layer protocols
are eventually encapsulated within an Ethernet frame. Capturing all link-layer frames thus gives
you all messages sent/received from/by all protocols and applications executing in your
computer.

The second component of a packet sniffer is the packet analyzer, which displays the contents of
all fields within a protocol message. In order to do so, the packet analyzer must “understand” the
structure of all messages exchanged by protocols. For example, suppose we are interested in
displaying the various fields in messages exchanged by the HTTP protocol in Figure 1. The
packet analyzer understands the format of Ethernet frames, and so can identify the IP datagram
within an Ethernet frame. It also understands the IP datagram format, so that it can extract the
TCP segment within the IP datagram. Finally, it understands the TCP segment structure, so it can
extract the HTTP message contained in the TCP segment. Finally, it understands the HTTP
protocol and so, for example, knows that the first bytes of an HTTP message will contain the
string “GET,” “POST,” or “HEAD,”.

Installation and Running Wireshark:

Wireshark is free to download at [Link] How to build and install Wireshark

onto machines with different operating systems can be referred to
[Link] When you run the Wireshark program, you’ll
get a startup screen, as shown below:

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Figure 2: Wireshark Graphical user interface (GUI)

Take a look at the upper left hand side of the screen – you’ll see an “Interface list”. This is the
list of network interfaces on your computer. Once you choose an interface, Wireshark will
capture all packets on that interface. In the example above, there is an Ethernet interface (Gigabit
network Connection) and a wireless interface (“Microsoft”). If you click on one of these
interfaces to start packet capture (i.e., for Wireshark to begin capturing all packets being sent
to/from that interface), a screen like the one below will be displayed, showing information about
the packets being captured. Once you start packet capture, you can stop it by using the Capture
pull down menu and selecting Stop.

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The Wireshark interface has five major components:

• The command menus are standard pulldown menus located at the top of the window. Of
interest to us now are the File and Capture menus. The File menu allows you to save captured
packet data or open a file containing previously captured packet data, and exit the Wireshark
application. The Capture menu allows you to begin packet capture.

• The packet-listing window displays a one-line summary for each packet captured, including the
packet number (assigned by Wireshark; this is not a packet number contained in any protocol’s
header), the time at which the packet was captured, the packet’s source and destination
addresses, the protocol type, and protocol-specific information contained in the packet. The
packet listing can be sorted according to any of these categories by clicking on a column name.
The protocol type field lists the highest-level protocol that sent or received this packet, i.e., the
protocol that is the source or ultimate sink for this packet.

• The packet-header details window provides details about the packet selected (highlighted) in
the packet-listing window. (To select a packet in the packet listing window, place the cursor over
the packet’s one-line summary in the packet-listing window and click with the left mouse
button.). These details include information about the Ethernet frame (assuming the packet was
sent/received over an Ethernet interface) and IP datagram that contains this packet. The amount
of Ethernet and IP-layer detail displayed can be expanded or minimized by clicking on the plus
minus boxes to the left of the Ethernet frame or IP datagram line in the packet details window. If

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the packet has been carried over TCP or UDP, TCP or UDP details will also be displayed, which
can similarly be expanded or minimized. Finally, details about the highest-level protocol that
sent or received this packet are also provided.

• The packet-contents window displays the entire contents of the captured frame, in both ASCII
and hexadecimal format.

• Towards the top of the Wireshark graphical user interface, is the packet display filter field, into
which a protocol name or other information can be entered in order to filter the information
displayed in the packet-listing window (and hence the packet-header and packet-contents
windows). In the example below, we’ll use the packet-display filter field to have Wireshark hide
(not display) packets except those that correspond to HTTP messages.

Taking Wireshark for a Test Run:

The best way to learn about any new piece of software is to try it out! We’ll assume that your
computer is connected to the Internet via a wired Ethernet interface. Indeed, I recommend that
you do this first lab on a computer that has a wired Ethernet connection, rather than just a
wireless connection. Do the following

1. Start up your favorite web browser, which will display your selected homepage.

2. Start up the Wireshark software. You will initially see a window similar to that shown in
Figure Wireshark has not yet begun capturing packets.

3. To begin packet capture, select the Capture pull down menu and select Interfaces. This will
cause the “Wireshark: Capture Interfaces” window to be displayed, as shown

4. You’ll see a list of the interfaces on your computer as well as a count of the packets that have
been observed on that interface so far. Click on Start for the interface on which you want to
begin packet capture (in the case, the Gigabit network Connection). Packet capture will now
begin - Wireshark is now capturing all packets being sent/received from/by your computer!

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5. Once you begin packet capture, a window similar to that shown in Figure 3 will appear. This
window shows the packets being captured. By selecting Capture pull down menu and selecting
Stop, you can stop packet capture. But don’t stop packet capture yet. Let’s capture some
interesting packets first. To do so, we’ll need to generate some network traffic. Let’s do so using
a web browser, which will use the HTTP protocol that we will study in detail in class to
download content from a website.

6. While Wireshark is running, enter the URL: [Link]

[Link] and have that page displayed in your browser. In order to display this page,
your browser will contact the HTTP server at [Link] and exchange HTTP messages
with the server in order to download this page, as discussed in section 2.2 of the text. The
Ethernet frames containing these HTTP messages (as well as all other frames passing through
your Ethernet adapter) will be captured by Wireshark.

7. After your browser has displayed the [Link] page (it is a simple one
line of congratulations), stop Wireshark packet capture by selecting stop in the Wireshark
capture window. The main Wireshark window should now look similar to Figure 3. You now
have live packet data that contains all protocol messages exchanged between your computer and
other network entities! The HTTP message exchanges with the [Link] web server
should appear somewhere in the listing of packets captured. But there will be many other types
of packets displayed as well (see, e.g., the many different protocol types shown in the Protocol
column in Figure 3). Even though the only action you took was to download a web page, there
were evidently many other protocols running on your computer that are unseen by the user.
We’ll learn much more about these protocols as we progress through the text! For now, you
should just be aware that there is often much more going on than “meet’s the eye”!

8. Type in “http” (without the quotes, and in lower case – all protocol names are in lower case in
Wireshark) into the display filter specification window at the top of the main Wireshark window.
Then select Apply (to the right of where you entered “http”). This will cause only HTTP
message to be displayed in the packet-listing window.

9. Find the HTTP GET message that was sent from your computer to the [Link]
HTTP server. (Look for an HTTP GET message in the “listing of captured packets” portion of
the Wireshark window (see Figure 3) that shows “GET” followed by the [Link] URL
that you entered. When you select the HTTP GET message, the Ethernet frame, IP datagram,
TCP segment, and HTTP message header information will be displayed in the packet-header
window2. By clicking on ‘+’ and ‘-‘ right-pointing and down-pointing arrowheads to the left side
of the packet details window, minimize the amount of Frame, Ethernet, Internet Protocol, and
Transmission Control Protocol information displayed. Maximize the amount information
displayed about the HTTP protocol. Your Wireshark display should now look roughly as shown

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in Figure. (Note, in particular, the minimized amount of protocol information for all protocols
except HTTP, and the maximized amount of protocol information for HTTP in the packet-header
window).

10. Exit Wireshark.

Display filters

Wireshark uses display filters for general packet filtering. Here are some filtering commands that
might be helpful for filtering some specific host and protocols. Examples are:

1.) [Link] == [Link]

2.) [Link] == [Link]

3.) http&&[Link] ==80

1.2 Networking Tools:

ping
The ping program in the source host sends a packet to the target IP address. If the target is
alive, the ping program in the target host responds by sending a packet back to the source

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host. Both of these ping packets carry ICMP messages. Try “ping --help” to find out its
usage.

ifconfig
ifconfig is a tool to configure a network interface, for instance, setting an interface’s IP
address and netmask, disabling or enabling a given interface. Try “ifconfig --help” to find out
its usage.
netstat
netstat is a tool that displays network connections, routing tables, and network interface
statistics. It is used for finding problems in the network and to determine the amount of
traffic on the network as a performance measurement. Try “netstat --help” to find its usage.

wget
wget is a command-line program that let you fetch a URL. Unlike a web browser, which
fetches and executes the entire pages, wget gives you the control on which URLs you fetch
and when you fetch them. wget has many options (try “wget --help” to see them) but a URL
can be fetched simply with “wget URL”.

1.3 Layered Protocol

Two reference models are used to describe the network architecture, the OSI/ISO reference
model and the TCP/IP reference model. The OSI/ISO model divides the network into seven
layers and the TCP/IP model divides the network into four layers. No matter which model is
used, the basic principle of the layered architecture is that each layer performs some services
for the layer above it.
Use the following capture options window of Wireshark to inspect the captured trace.

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 Select an HTTP GET packet. This packet carries the HTTP request sent from your
computer to the server.
 The protocol layers being used in web fetching are shown in Figure 3. HTTP is the
application layer web protocol used to fetch URLs. It runs on top of the TCP/IP transport
and network layer protocols. The link layer protocol shown in the figure is Ethernet. It
may be other protocol, depends on your network.
 Click one HTTP packet, and turn to the middle panel with details of the packet. The first
block is “Frame”. This is a record that describes overall information about the packet,
including when it was captured and how many bits it has. The second block is “Ethernet”
(You may have taken trace in a computer with 802.11, but still you will see an Ethernet
block. This is because Wireshark captures traffic in Ethernet format. See Link-layer
header type.). Then we can see IP, TCP, and HTTP. This is in a bottom-up order, because
as packets are passed down the protocol stack, the header of the lower layer protocol is
added to the front of the information from the higher layer protocol. That is, the header
from the lower layer protocols comes earlier in the packet.
 When an Ethernet frame arrives at a computer, the Ethernet layer must hand the packet
that it contains to the next higher layer to be processed. In order to do this, the protocol
uses information in its header to determine the higher layer data unit encapsulated. Which
field is used here?

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 Draw a figure of an HTTP GET packet that shows the position and size in bytes of the
TCP, IP and Ethernet protocol headers. On this drawing, show the range of header and
payload of each layer.

Figure 3: Protocol stack for a web fetch

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LAB TASKS
Task No 1: List 3 different protocols that appear in the protocol column in the unfiltered
packet-listing window in step 7 above.

Answer:

Task No 1: How long did it take from when the HTTP GET message was sent until the
HTTP OK reply was received? (By default, the value of the Time column in the packet
listing window is the amount of time, in seconds, since Wireshark tracing began. To display
the Time field in time-of-day format, select the Wireshark View pull down menu, then
select Time Display Format, then select Time-of-day.)

Answer:

Task No 1: What is the Internet address of the [Link] (also known as [Link].
[Link])? What is the Internet address of your computer?
Answer:

Task No 1. Print the two HTTP messages (GET and OK) referred to in question 2 above.
To do so, select Print from the Wireshark File command menu, and select the “Selected
Packet Only” and “Print as displayed” radial buttons, and then click OK.

Answer:

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