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 VLANs and VLAN tagging issues


VLAN, or Virtual LAN, is a mechanism that divides a LAN into separate LANs without any connectivity between them, and this is where the name virtual comes from. In this section we will have a look at recipes to monitor VLAN traffic.

The purpose of this recipe is to give the reader a general description of how to use Wireshark for VLAN issues. An easier way to solve related problems is to use the vendor's CLI (Cisco IOS, Juniper JUNOS, and so on) for this purpose.

Getting ready

We will discuss two issues in this recipe:

  • How to monitor traffic inside a VLAN

  • How to view tagged frames going through a VLAN-tagged port

In the first case, a simple configuration is required. In the second case, there are some points to take care of.

While capturing on a VLAN, you won't necessarily see the VLAN tags in packets. The question of whether you will see the VLAN tags actually depends on the operating system you are running, and if your Network Interface Card (NIC) and...