Course Outline
Network Analysis Overview
- Essentials of the OSI reference model and TCP/IP networks.
- Troubleshooting tools and methodologies.
- Introduction to Wireshark
- What is Wireshark? Portable Wireshark versions and resources.
- Wireshark GUI structure: Panes (Packet List, Details, Packet Bytes), Status Bar, etc.
- Architecture and processing flow. Limitations: What cannot be seen with Wireshark and why?
- Supported protocols and dissectors.
- Preferences and configurations: global and profile-specific settings.
- Time values.
- Lab exercises.
Capturing Traffic
- Considerations before starting a capture.
- Promiscuous mode.
- Capture filters.
- Automatic stop criteria.
- Remote capture.
- Lab exercises.
Traffic Analysis: Tools and Approaches
- Analysis checklist.
- Utilizing features: name resolution, colorization, marking, ignoring, commenting, using time references, time shifts, etc.
- Understanding the Expert Information system.
- Accessing options via Right-Click functionality.
- Interpretation (reference patterns) and the impact of OS/driver Offload features.
- Saving results.
- Lab exercises and case studies.
Traffic Analysis: Tools and Approaches (Continued)
- Filtering traffic: Display filters (preparing "in-flight" filters, macros), following streams.
- Quantitative analysis.
- Basic predefined descriptive statistics and summaries: Capture Properties, Protocol Hierarchy, Conversations, Endpoints, Packet Lengths, IP-specific data.
- Protocol-specific analysis (e.g., TCP Stream Graphs).
- Advanced custom statistics using I/O Graphs.
- Flow visualization.
Traffic Analysis: Protocols
- Data-Link Layer: Ethernet II.
- Network Layer: IPv4.
- Transport Layer: TCP and UDP.
- Packet loss and recovery.
- Previous segment lost and Out-of-Order Segments events.
- Duplicate ACKs and Fast Retransmissions.
- TCP Retransmissions.
- Zero Window, Window changes, and other window-related issues.
- Application Layer: HTTP and FTP.
- Lab exercises and case studies.
Traffic Analysis: Common Issues in Network Performance Assessment
- Identifying the causes of performance problems.
- Packet loss.
- Bandwidth issues. Layered approach to measurement.
- Latency: assessing end-to-end latency and visualization.
- Lab exercises.
- (Wireshark) command-line tools:
- tshark (terminal-based Wireshark) / dumpcap / rawshark, tcpdump
- editcap, mergecap, capinfos, text2pcap.
Advanced Topics
- Advanced filters and grouped iostats.
- Summary and Q&A.
Requirements
1. Familiarity with the ISO OSI Reference Model (ITU-T X.200) and the TCP/IP protocol stack.
2. Basic knowledge of Unix/Linux operating systems: UNIX terminal usage, directory structure, listing files and directories, creating directories, changing directories, copying, moving, and removing files and directories, redirection, pipes, and processes (including listing suspended and background processes).
Hardware & Software
1. Hardware: Minimum 16GB of RAM and 60GB of free disk space required.
2. Operating System: Ubuntu Linux is preferred. Ensure the following applications are installed: ip, iperf, and ipcalc.
3. Software: Wireshark application (https://www.wireshark.org/download.html).
All software should be on the latest stable available releases.
Testimonials (3)
practical case studies
Kamil - P4 Sp. z o.o.
Course - Basic Network Troubleshooting Using Wireshark
knowledge of the instructor
Grzegorz - Centrum Informatyki Resortu Finansow
Course - Network Troubleshooting with Wireshark
Many exercises, good knowladge