Ethereal Packet Sniffing 147
Ethereal Packet Sniffing | |
author | Angela Orebaugh with Greg Morris and Ed Warnick |
pages | 468 |
publisher | Syngress |
rating | 7 |
reviewer | Jose Nazario |
ISBN | 1932266828 |
summary | Solid coverage of an excellent networking tool. Offers value beyond free documentation, insight available nowhere else, and plenty of handy tips and tricks. |
I've used the tool for years, and I've read the docs a bit, so I felt comfortable with the tool. Still, I wanted to learn something new with it, and I wanted to see if this book could offer what I was hoping for. The book delivers, and does a pretty good job. One of the big tests for me about any book that covers an Open Source project is "Does this book offer more than the existing documentation?" If it fails to, the book isn't worth the money, I'll stick with free docs. While the book comes out favorably for me, I'll start with the things I didn't like, first.
One of the big things that is missing from this book is any coverage of Ethereal on OS X. Given how many people are migrating to OS X (from UN*X or from Windows), and the coverage of Ethereal on Windows, I would have expected some mention of it. Luckily it's available in both Darwin Ports and the Fink project, but some mention of any of the quirks people may encounter would have been welcome. Amy (from Syngress) tells me that they will have a paper in their Solutions center on Ethereal on OS X, which would be great to see.
Another annoyance with the book is the repeated coverage in some sections of various aspects of Ethereal. One that stands out is the coverage of the additional tools which are installed alongside Ethereal, like Editcap and Text2pcap. They are covered in chapter 2 for a bit and then more completely in chapter 6. Covering these tools only once would have sufficed, but it does let chapter 2 stand on its own. Amy tells me that they do this intentionally, because it makes some chapters stand on their own as "units" for others to use. That makes sense.
A final bit of the book I didn't like was the choice of screenshots: quite a number of the screenshots were full screen dumps when only one or two elements of the page really mattered. Either trimmed or annotated screenshots would have been more welcome. A lot of information gets dumped in Ethereal, helping people navigate the UI with a static, black-and-white image would have been welcome.
Now, on to the real strengths of the book. Like I said earlier, The book offers more coverage than the existing, free docs on Ethereal provide, or at least in a more manageable form. Obviously, with the source code in front of me I could dissect the tool and learn everything about it, but that's hardly efficient. Simply put, the book introduces network sniffing and troubleshooting well. How can you place a sniffer to get coverage, what can a sniffer tell you during troubleshooting (and what can it not?), and of course how to get and install Ethereal (on UN*X and Windows).
The next chapter covers exactly what you would expect it to, how to use Ethereal. Ethereal's main use is as a GUI protocol analyzer, so you have menus, panes and windows to navigate. This chapter tells you what they are and how they present and format the data you're looking at. The next chapter deals with four tools that come with Ethereal: Tethereal (very similar to tcpdump), Editcap, Mergecap, and Text2pcap (all useful for managing pcap files).
Chapter 7 is one of those handy things to read. Ethereal is typically used to read pcap files, but it can also read snoop files, Microsoft Network Monitor files, EtherPeek files, NAI's Sniffer files, and HPUX's nettl files, all of which you'll find around. It's handy that you can see how to integrate Ethereal with these other products.
Chapter 8 brings it all together with real world packet captures, many of which are also on the included CD. These files include scans, Trojan uses, and even worm traffic. All of these are useful for learning how to use Ethereal and highlight the power of the tool. You can go from novice to a pretty decent network protocol junkie if you dilligently study the resources in this chapter and on the CD.
Chapter 9 will be useful to a small subset of people, but quite useful. This chapter gives you a tour of how to develop for and extend Ethereal. Ethereal's main strength is a huge number of decode routines, such as sFlow and MPLS (in addition to the standard ones like DNS, DHCP, and the like). Using this information you can extend Ethereal for your own needs and maybe even contribute back to the project.
Either the developer's angle or the detailed discussions and examples of the filter syntax are my favorite parts of the book. They contribute significant value for everyday use, and I found them useful in a recent task at work.
The book is going to run the risk of becoming quickly out of date, given the development pace of Ethereal. However, it relies more on underlying core concepts and principles inherent in Ethereal, so it should stay useful for longer than you may think.
All in all I would say this is probably worth picking up if you're looking at becoming a network operator or network security junkie. You'll learn a lot about a powerful tool, how to integrate it into your use, and even how to dissect real traces of traffic. I give it a 7 out of 10 for the above weaknesses, but that shouldn't stop you from strongly considering it.
You can purchase Ethereal Packet Sniffing from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page
Additional note: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Additional note: (Score:1, Funny)
I'm off the hook with my girlfriend! Pfew!
Re:Additional note: (Score:3, Funny)
In Soviet Russia Ethereal you!
or
Ethereal
???
Profit!
There! I just earned my second "Troll" mod for the week.
--
Getting modded as "Troll" let's me know that I'm not succumbing
Getting modded as "Troll" lets everyone else know your an idiot.
Re:Additional note: (Score:3, Funny)
If you're going to be an apostrophe troll, you need to make sure you get your own apostrophes right!
Re:Additional note: (Score:1, Interesting)
The fact that someone can post something that would NORMALLY be modded troll, but since they say 'Oh, I've earned for xth troll mod for the day.', they get modded up, whilst other opinions/facts are more deserving of the mod points.
Re:Additional note: (Score:1)
I hope you read your posts later on .... I'm pretty angry at the staleness of /. and the fact that I've seen well articulated arguments against popular opinion get modded as "Troll".
Re:Additional note: (Score:1)
Thank you for getting it.
MisanthropicProgram
Re:Additional note: (Score:2)
I understand truthfully though, as I can name a certain someone who has done something of that sort in the past before...
I love this tool (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I love this tool (Score:2)
possible? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:possible? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:possible? (Score:3, Funny)
Usually the wrong level for solving that problem (Score:4, Informative)
If you're an ISP or hosting center that has customers that you're only providing with IP services, not email services, you _could_ sniff packets and send RSETs to kill sessions that look like spam, but you'd be doing it with less information than your customers, and you would probably end up killing off lots of useful mail, such as the message they're sending to abuse@example.net telling them how to find the spammer that just sent them this message. Usually a bad idea.
Already out of date (Score:5, Informative)
For example, on page 47, figure 2.1 is out of date, as the menu items have changed and the toolbar now has more items.
On Page 146 and 147 the authors attempted to deal with changes in the GUI, and show us what the new print dialog box will look like, however, that version is also out of date.
On Page 153, Figure 4.19 is out of date. On Page 155, Figure 4.21 no longer exists. Page 156, Figure 4.22 is out of date. Page 162, Figure 4.31 is out of date, and so on.
Further on, Page 180, Figures 4.49 and 4.50 are also out of date, and it would have been nicer to show some real-life examples of problems one can spot with the Time Sequence Graphs and some explanation of how socket layer stuff relates to what you might see on the wire.
So, I am not sure this book is worth buying. Perhaps wait for the update.
Re:Already out of date (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure 90% of the book is still relevant.
Sure there has been new features introduced since the book was written but there will also be some others after the book update will be published.
Regarding the real life examples, I guess it was the author choice to explain what the software does, not to teach TCP/IP again and let you deal with the use cases since there are several thousands of them.
Out of date? It was published in February 2004. (Score:2)
How out of date can the book be? It was published in February 2004 [oreilly.com].
Then again, Ethereal version 0.10.3 was released on March 25, 2004 [ethereal.com].
Ethereal version 0.10.2 was released on February 23, 2004 [ethereal.com].
Ethereal version 0.10.1 was released on February 18, 2004 [ethereal.com].
Ethereal version 0.10.0 was released on December 12, 2003 [ethereal.com].
Perhaps most importantly, according to one Amazon.com review, "the book documents version 0.10.0 [amazon.com]." Ano
Re:Already out of date (Score:2, Insightful)
You think the print dialogue is essential to effective use of this tool? Enough that an 'out of date' screenshot of the print dialogue turns you away from it?
Re:Already out of date (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Already out of date (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer:Of course, I could be totally wrong on this, since it's based on my own casual observation rather than a publishing schedule.
Sounds Good (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sounds Good (Score:1)
Do you by chance mean Snort?
Re:Sounds Good (Score:1)
Re:Sounds Good (Score:1)
Re:Sounds Good (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sounds Good (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Sounds Good (Score:1)
Re:Sounds Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Comprehensive? So you basicially rewrote Tripwire, Saint, and a bunch of other stuff using ethereal?
Re:Sounds Good (Score:1)
Just Wondering.... (Score:5, Funny)
So what's it like working for the N.S.A.? Do they have a decent benefits package?
Re:Just Wondering.... (Score:2)
More importantly... (Score:1)
So what's it like working for the N.S.A.? Do they have a decent benefits package?
More importantly, do you feel your job security is at stake due to recent purchases [slashdot.org] made by the government?
Re:Just Wondering.... (Score:3, Funny)
I look at packets for a living. I generate them, I capture them and dissect them, and I try and make sense of them as quickly as possible....
By this measure, I look at packets for a living too... well, I don't get paid for it, but it takes more time than my day job at Twinkles Bar and
Question... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to but... (Score:5, Interesting)
What I want to know is, is there a way to get Ethereal running on XP? Is there an alternative to WinPcap 3.0?
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:5, Informative)
Your network configuration can also affect what packets you see - are there switches dividing your network? Are you alone on your network?
New the Ethereal?
Start a capture, then check your email. Then use the email address and password you capture to do all kinds of nasty things.
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:2)
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Knee-jerk Linux reactions are no better than knee-jerk MS reactions, 'cept Linux has cooler t-shirts.
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:2)
Well, ok, no, I wouldn't run it on my primary work machine either, but its still cool
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:2)
Is that orinoco silver (model nos 8410-WD or 8420-WD)?
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:1)
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:2)
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:1)
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:5, Informative)
[quote] For windows get winpcap [polito.it] [polito.it]
then get ethereal for windows [ethereal.com] [ethereal.com]
and get windump [polito.it] [polito.it]
SANS.org has all the info: Packet capture apps [sans.org] [sans.org][/quote]
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:2)
2.3 i think it is.
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:3, Informative)
then get this,
http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution= std [distrowatch.com]
and get this too,
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/phlak [ibiblio.org]
then get one of these,
http://www.systemrecycler.com/shomiti/ [systemrecycler.com]
and lastly get this just for shits, grins and giggles,
http://www.metasploit.com/projects/Framework/docum entation.html [metasploit.com]
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:2)
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I'd love to but... (Score:1)
ethereal plus google's locator service... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:ethereal plus google's locator service... (Score:2, Informative)
Good Book (Score:2, Interesting)
It seens to be a good intro to Ethereal and packet sniffing - esp. if you've not done much with it before.
OS X & Ethereal (Score:3, Insightful)
Panther (10.3.x) has X Windows intergrated, although I haven't bought it yet...(so I don't know how well it works or if all the build issues are sorted out of Fink...although Fink is supposed to work now)
10.1.x, I have no clue, but it's different than 10.2.x (probably have to install some third variant of X via Fink)
Ethereal on OS X does rock especially with KisMac but there's three or four possible scenarios for install...probably why the book doesn't cover it...
Re:OS X & Ethereal (Score:3, Informative)
Note that while X is "integrated" you need to specifically install it from Install Disk 3. Also, you will need to do a custom install from the XCode disk to get the X11SDK.
There are some real annoyences in getting fink to accept that you are using Apple's distribution of X. I'm still not confiden
Re:OS X & Ethereal (Score:1, Flamebait)
You just have to install system-xfree86 [sourceforge.net] via Fink first. You shouldn't have any problems after that.
IS OS X Special? (Score:2, Insightful)
But, whenever I use Ethereal on OS X, I just download the latest source.
make
make install
Then, launch X, and run ethereal.
So, there you go. There's your chapter on using Ethereal in OS X.
Happy to help!
Too late (Score:3, Funny)
After crashing the high score page from an integer overflow caused by my rediculously high score, I decided that maybe I should stop.
So after beating the internet, what purpose does a book on Ethereal serve?
What would actually be handy is a browser that you can tell to "step" through message transmissions. The owner of the "Kill Everyone Project" challenged me to hack his other games after I e-mailed him to explain what I did and how he could fix it. The only reason I couldn't do it was because after some cookie passing with my program I couldn't quite get the SWF file with the session ID. With a real browser with "step" it would be possible to let it load up the game session like normal but then set it to "step" mode and be able to edit packets before they go to the server.
I don't imagine it would be too terribly difficult to add such a feature to Mozilla. It would be nice to have a text window that shows what data is actually being sent up to the server with the option to have to manually okay each packet so you could edit out any info you'd rather the server didn't have.
Like when certain Javascript pages try to grab system information.
Ben
livehttpheaders.mozdev.org (Score:2)
WebScarab has this functionality (Score:1)
Check out WebScarab [sourceforge.net], which is available from the Open Web Application Security Project [owasp.org].
The feature you are interested in is:
Great every idiot on slashdot will be sniffing now (Score:3, Funny)
Please people, leaving SNIFFING to the professionals!
Re:Great every idiot on slashdot will be sniffing (Score:1)
Would that mean i was sniffing coke packets?
Ethereal Rocks (Score:3, Informative)
If you *really* need to sniff, (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.systemrecycler.com/shomiti/ [systemrecycler.com]
Re:If you *really* need to sniff, (Score:2)
BTW, Fluke sells this very item with a Fluke label on it, the "Fluke TAP-12"
http://www.flukenetworks.com/us/LAN/Monitoring+An a lysis+Diagramming/Inline+Taps/Overview.htm [flukenetworks.com]
I assure you, this device from Fluke [flukenetworks.com] or Shomiti [shomiti.net] (now Finisar [finisar.com])
costs a HELL of a lot more than $4,000
Ethereal in University Setting (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ethereal in University Setting (Score:4, Funny)
Is this Prof on crack that he/she doesn't think that any of their students is going to try sniffing their neighbors packets on the dorm network? Hell, thats the first thing I'd do!
Re:Ethereal in University Setting (Score:2)
Re:Ethereal in University Setting (Score:2, Interesting)
This even works on cable modems, but you can only sniff downstream packets, not upstream.
Re:Ethereal in University Setting (Score:1)
Re:Ethereal in University Setting (Score:1)
Re:Ethereal in University Setting (Score:2)
Re:Ethereal in University Setting (Score:2)
Bah...running traces on live networks is MUCH more fun (albeit for legitimate purposes). Tethereal and grep are an interesting combination as well.
Web (Score:2)
Would some duct tape help? (Score:1)
Re:Would some duct tape help? (Score:1)
I know I'm being lazy but... (Score:2)
~jeff
Re:I know I'm being lazy but... (Score:2)
Re:I know I'm being lazy but... (Score:1)
strlen( "port install ethereal")* ... I really wish there was a .pkg installer for OS X.")
strlen( "I know I'm being lazy but...
Network Associates Sniffer Pro is excellent. (Score:1)
Although it would be nice to have some more sophisticated software in tune with hardware like routers and switches.
Development on these types of software seems to have gone stagnant.
You'd think with all the crap on the net, there would be some really good tools.
packet sniffing (Score:5, Funny)
Suddenly people across the room are hanging on your every word, until they realize you didn't say "panty sniffing" and they can't get vicarious thrills/outrage from the perverted geeks in the corner.
Flameon (Score:3, Funny)
packet sniffing? (Score:2)
Aha! a real live Tea farmer!
As many Unix tools, Ethereal is egoist ! (Score:2, Interesting)
However, we wanted to log the traffic over many days and to make graphs and statistics from the results. And this where Ethereal falls short and shows up the weak point of many tools coming from the Unix world : how can we interface and use the power of Ethereal from
Re:As many Unix tools, Ethereal is egoist ! (Score:1)
Have you taken a look at Nagios, for example? ( www.nagios.org )
I have a feeling that your tone of voice won't be received well here, despite all the work you've done to get Ethereal to work in your environment. Good luck to you.
Re:As many Unix tools, Ethereal is egoist ! (Score:2, Informative)
A few other options for you:
1) Simplest option with focus on http: Put in squid as a transparent proxy. No need to setup anything on the client, just put the squid server in front of your gateway and tell it to route port 80 through squid. Lots of tools exists to analyze squid log files. My preference is awstats, because it suits my needs.
2) Use tcpdump, writing to a file. You can use -C to specify files
Ethereal (Score:2)
Ethereal compatible packet sniffing:Novell NetWare (Score:2, Informative)
Guidelines to Take a Packet Trace [novell.com]
Packetscan - NetWare packet capture tool [novell.com]
How to use Ethereal to capture a packet trace [novell.com]
How to configure a capture filter for Ethereal [novell.com]
Richard Stevens... (Score:2, Interesting)
I currently reading TCP/IP Illustrated Vol.1 (somewhere above Chap. 19) and have begun with Vol.2 a few days ago... (implemetation of IP in FreeBSD havy stuff... :))
Well... if you have read Vol.1 you should not have further questions to a tcpdump or an ethereal or "raw packet binary dump" output.
Stevens explain all fields in the headers and what are possible options/flags and what they do. Also he explain how connections are established and closed and data are delivered. He also gives a short instr
Mordekainen's Ethereal Packet Sniffing (Score:3, Funny)
Why oh why did I have to play so much D&D in high school...
A book on Ethereal? (Score:2)
LS
Ethereal, nmap, nessus (Score:3, Funny)
I have a vague notion about how to use some of them in limited fashion, but I'm handicaped by not having an intimate knowledge of how IP and TCP really work (down at the packet level).
No longer 'sniffing the glue', but much better... (Score:3, Informative)
The other nice function that is not quite that recent, but I think appeared within the past year and a half or so, is the ability to filter a TCP connection, just by right clicking on one frame of the stream, and choosing 'Follow TCP Stream'. This automatically creates a filter based on the source and destination IP and ports, and spawns a new window that contains only the data portions of the stream. It defaults to interpreting data as ASCII, but you can choose EBCDIC, or just look at the HEX, and export out to another app that can view the data. Very useful for any apps that use ASCII text to communicate (I've often used for un-encrypted FIX connection troubleshooting)
This and some other very simple features make Ethereal much more powerful for troubleshooting and viewing individual connections that Sniffer Pro, which can cost more than $5000, depending on your configuration. A very simple but effective feature is just the ability to organize alpha-numerically columns in the capture window. Its sometimes the easiest way to find where traffic from a certain IP starts...We had training on Sniffer Pro from an NAI guy once, and I asked why Sniffer didn't have this feature...He was like 'what would you use this for?'
That training session was when I discovered that Sniffer Pro is really better suited to looking at a whole network, and performance as a whole...Ethereal is absolutely the best for looking at individual packets, data streams, or connection problems.
a book? (Score:1)
Re:Ethereal question... (Score:2)
Re:Tomayto, tomahto (Score:2)
Hopefully not. For one thing, "Ethereal" wasn't named after somebody whose name is pronounced in a way different from the way the same name is pronounced when it's then name of a character in "Peanuts". :-)
See the Ethereal FAQ item [ethereal.com] on the pronunciation; you're right, they're wrong.