From: "Dave Saville" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
To: "os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:35:23 +0000 (GMT)
Reply-To: "Dave Saville" <dave@deezee.org>
Priority: Normal
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: OT Packet sniffers
Message-ID: <0031144250.00000K5B@mail.deezee.org>

OT for WIFI but may prove useful to somebody I hope.

I am having a problem with a Zyxel ATA and a Zyxel router. Their support is
being very helpful and suggested that the next time I had the problem a network
trace would be helpful. So I started looking for a solution only to find there
is not one for OS/2. I did find some code on Hobbes but it is very old and
obviously suffering from software rot as it threw loads of errors when I tried
to compile it. :-)

I then recalled that my Solaris box almost certainly had snoop on it and that
proved to be the case so I ensured I could trace the two boxes.

This morning I once again gave some brain cells over to an OS/2 solution and
had a flash of lateral inspiration. VPC using virtual switch puts your NIC into
promiscuous mode. In that case would OS/2's normal iptrace work - and the
answer is YES it traces all packets on the network. You need to actually have a
virtual machine running but that's all.

There is one big proviso in all this of course. The tracing machine and
whatever it is tracing *must* be connected by a HUB not a SWITCH. (Switches act
a bit like routers - they know what is connected to which port. You can see the
difference with ping. Ping a box on hub connected machines and all the lights
blink. Do the same thing with a switch and only the two machines concerned
blink.) 

-- 
Regards

Dave Saville