Top 10 Wireshark Filters

Image via Wikipedia

Article by Chris Greer first published on http://www.lovemytool.com/

The filtering capabilities of Wireshark are very comprehensive. You can filter on just about any field of any protocol, even down to the HEX values in a data stream. Sometimes though, the hardest part about setting a filter in Wireshark is remembering the syntax! So below are the top 10 display filters that I use in Wireshark. Please comment below and add any common ones that you use as well.

1. ip.addr == 10.0.0.1 [Sets a filter for any packet with 10.0.0.1, as either the source or dest]
2. ip.addr==10.0.0.1  && ip.addr==10.0.0.2 [sets a conversation filter between the two defined IP addresses]
3. http or dns [sets a filter to display all http and dns]
4. tcp.port==4000 [sets a filter for any TCP packet with 4000 as a source or dest port]
5. tcp.flags.reset==1 [displays all TCP resets]
6. http.request [displays all HTTP GET requests]
7. tcp contains traffic [displays all TCP packets that contain the word ‘traffic’. Excellent when searching on a specific string or user ID]
8. !(arp or icmp or dns) [masks out arp, icmp, dns, or whatever other protocols may be background noise. Allowing you to focus on the traffic of interest]
9. udp contains 33:27:58 [sets a filter for the HEX values of 0x33 0x27 0x58 at any offset]
10. tcp.analysis.retransmission [displays all retransmissions in the trace. Helps when tracking down slow application performance and packet loss]

So there are a few of my favorite Wireshark filters (which does not include the Follow TCP Stream filter). How about you? What are your most commonly used filters?

Author Profile – Chris Greeris a Network Analyst for Packet Pioneer. Chris has many years of experience in analyzing and troubleshooting networks. He regularly assists companies in tracking down the source of network and application performance problems using a variety of protocol analysis and monitoring tools including Wireshark. When he isn’t hunting down problems at the packet level, he can be found teaching various analysis workshops at Interop and other industry trade shows. Chris also delivers training and develops technical content for several analysis vendors. He can be contacted at chris (at) packetpioneer (dot) com.