You do not always need to know every single packet traveling across, so being able to narrow down to the exact protocol you need is helpful.

And yes, you need both of the ampersands. The '&' will return both conditions in the statement, and not one or the other as is sometimes thought. Sometimes you only need specific data, so there is no need to bother sifting through the others.Īlso of note with the '&' operator-those of you who are familiar with programming will know this-but it could be repeated. This is useful to watch communication between two specific hosts or networks. Sets a conversation filter between the two IP addresses. A good example would be some odd happenings in your server logs, now you want to check outgoing traffic and see if it matches. This is useful if you want to look for specific machines or networks. Sets a filter for any packet with x.x.x.x, as either the source or destination IP address. The auto complete guesses are also there to help you put together new combos of filtering. This works on a live capture, as well as in files of dates you might be importing.Īlso, as you type, notice the color of the text field changes from red to green, signaling when you have a valid filter. You can type filter syntax right into this field and watch in wonder as your once jumbled pile of messages transforms into a neat clean stack ordered how you tell it. The most visible and easy to use spot is right in front of you! You can compare values in packets, search for strings, hide protocols you don't need, and so much more. Thankfully, Wireshark includes a rich yet simple filter language that allows you to build quite complex expressions. Moving into larger wireless networks, the sheer amount of broadcast traffic alone will slow you down and get in your way. Working from this mess would be a headache!

Servers are broadcasting, computers are asking for webpages, and on top of this, the colors are difficult to digest with confusing number sequences to boot. When you first fire up Wireshark, it can be daunting. I am simply using filters to manage the view. All examples below are from a 10 minute period of packet capture on my lab network. Sometimes, the hardest part about setting a filter in Wireshark is remembering the syntax, so below are the top display filters that I use. You can filter on just about any field of any protocol, even down to the hex values in a data stream. The filtering capabilities here are very comprehensive.

Wireshark multiple filters