Sanders - Practical Packet Analysis: Using Wireshark to Solve Real-World Network Problems

Copyright 2009

You may find yourself wondering why you should buy this book as opposed to any other book about packet analysis. The answer lies right in the title: Practical Packet Analysis . Let's face itnothing beats real-world experience, and the closest you can come to that experience in a book is through practical examples of packet analysis with real-world case scenarios. The first half of this book gives you the prerequisite knowledge you will need to understand packet analysis and Wireshark. The second half of the book is devoted entirely to practical case scenarios that you could easily encounter in day-to-day network management.

Whether you are a network technician, a network administrator, a chief information officer, a desktop technician, or simply a help desk worker, you have a lot to gain from understanding and using packet analysis techniques.

I am generally a really laid-back guy, so I when I teach a concept, I try to do so in a really laid-back way. This holds true for the language used in this book. It is very easy to get lost in technical jargon when dealing with a technical concept, but I have tried my best to keep things as casual as possible. I'll make all definitions clear, straightforward, and to the point, without any added fluff.

If you really want to learn packet analysis, you should make it a point to master the concepts in the first several chaptersthey are integral to understanding the rest of the book. The second half of the book is purely conceptual. You may not see these exact scenarios in your work, but you should be able to apply the concepts you learn from them in the situations you do encounter.

Here is a quick breakdown of the chapters of this book.

What is packet analysis? How does it work? How do you do it? This chapter covers the very basics of network communication and packet analysis.

This chapter covers the different techniques you can use to place a packet sniffer on your network.

Here we'll look at the basics of Wiresharkwhere to get it, how to use it, what it does, why it's great, and all of that good stuff.

Once you get Wireshark up and running, you will want to know the basics of interacting with captured packets. This is where you'll learn.

Once you have learned to crawl, it's time to take off running with the advanced Wireshark features. This chapter delves into these features and goes under the hood to show you things that aren't always so apparent.

This chapter shows what some of the most common network communication protocols look like at the packet level. In order to understand how these protocols can malfunction, you first have to understand how they work.

This chapter contains the first set of real-world case scenarios. Each scenario is presented in an easy-to-follow format, where for each scenario the problem, my analysis, and a solution are given. These basic scenarios deal with only a few computers and involve a limited amount of analysisjust enough to get your feet wet.

The most common problems network technicians hear about generally involve slow network performance. This chapter is devoted to solving these types of problems.

Network security is the biggest hot-button topic in network administration. Because of this, shows you the ins and outs of solving security-related issues with packet analysis techniques.

The last chapter of the practical section of the book is a primer on wireless packet analysis. This chapter discusses the differences between wireless analysis and wired analysis and includes a quick case scenario that reinforces what you've learned.