Wireshark is a packet sniffer and analysis tool. Using Wireshark to look at packets without permission is illegal. You should only use Wireshark on networks where you have permission to inspect network packets. There truly isn’t a better way to learn low-level networking than to look at traffic under the Wireshark microscope. Government agencies, corporations, non-profits, and educational institutions use Wireshark for troubleshooting and teaching purposes. A global organization of network specialists and software developers supports Wireshark and continues to make updates for new network technologies and encryption methods. Wireshark is an open-source network protocol analysis software program, widely considered the industry standard.

Wireshark is the de facto, go-to, you-need-to-know-how-to-use, application to capture and investigate network traffic.Īnd because Wireshark is the predominant tool for this job, let’s go over some application basics, such as where you can download Wireshark, how to capture network packets, how to use filters, and more.

Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.If you find yourself troubleshooting network issues, and you have to inspect individual packets, you need to use Wireshark.

Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly.

Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Pcap NG, Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer® (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments Observer, NetScreen snoop, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others.

The most powerful display filters in the industry.

Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility.

Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others.

Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time.

Wireshark offline installer