Book Image

Network Analysis using Wireshark Cookbook

By : Yoram Orzach
Book Image

Network Analysis using Wireshark Cookbook

By: Yoram Orzach

Overview of this book

Is your network slow? Are your users complaining? Disconnections? IP Telephony problems? Video freezes? Network analysis is the process of isolating these problems and fixing them, and Wireshark has long been the most popular network analyzer for achieving this goal. Based on hundreds of solved cases, Network Analysis using Wireshark Cookbook provides you with practical recipes for effective Wireshark network analysis to analyze and troubleshoot your network. "Network analysis using Wireshark Cookbook" highlights the operations of Wireshark as a network analyzer tool. This book provides you with a set of practical recipes to help you solve any problems in your network using a step-by-step approach. "Network analysis using Wireshark Cookbook" starts by discussing the capabilities of Wireshark, such as the statistical tools and the expert system, capture and display filters, and how to use them. The book then guides you through the details of the main networking protocols, that is, Ethernet, LAN switching, and TCP/IP, and then discusses the details of application protocols and their behavior over the network. Among the application protocols that are discussed in the book are standard Internet protocols like HTTP, mail protocols, FTP, and DNS, along with the behavior of databases, terminal server clients, Citrix, and other applications that are common in the IT environment. In a bottom-up troubleshooting approach, the book goes up through the layers of the OSI reference model explaining how to resolve networking problems. The book starts from Ethernet and LAN switching, through IP, and then on to TCP/UDP with a focus on TCP performance problems. It also focuses on WLAN security. Then, we go through application behavior issues including HTTP, mail, DNS, and other common protocols. The book finishes with a look at network forensics and how to search and find security problems that might harm the network.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Network Analysis Using Wireshark Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Analyzing HTTP problems


The bottom line is, of course, how to analyze the HTTP problems. This is what this recipe is all about. HTTP problems can happen because of a slow server or client, TCP performance issues, and some other reasons that we will see in this recipe.

Getting ready

When you experience bad performance while browsing the Internet, connect the Wireshark with port mirror to the PC that experiences the problem, and when it is the whole network that suffers from bad performance, port mirror the connection to the Internet.

How to do it...

There can be various reasons for a slow browsing problem, and we'll try to figure it out step-by-step. The steps are given as follows:

  1. First, check that you don't simply have loaded line to the Internet, high error rate on the communications line, or any of these obvious issues that cause most of the problems (see Chapter 4, Using Basic Statistics Tools and Chapter 5, Using Advanced Statistics Tools for further details).

  2. To negate a TCP issue (as explained...