I have to agree with Ian, when working on a trace, I can really focus
my concentration on what I am doing, not what I need to do.
When asked by analyzer vendors why I use Ethereal instead of their
products, my 1st answer is always that I can just USE the tool without
having to think about HOW to use the tool.
While other tools have nifty and pretty bells and whistles, you have to
click and poke to find what you need. Ethereal lets me work without
really thinking about what button to click or popping up a new menu to
do a simple filter. This lets me concentrate on what I need to do,
figure out the trace.
When a trace has a large number of conversations, I would not want to
reprocess to get the conversation list and then build the filter, and
reprocess a 2nd time. This would really break my concentration. It
is far easier to make up a filter (ala Follow TCP stream) than to build
the conversation list and process the trace 2x;
That said, the ability to pull a conversation from the conversation
list is fantastic. One thing that would be a great addition here (yes
another request) is the ability to open the conversation in a new
ethereal window or process.
Thanks for a great tool
Kevin
On Saturday, October 11, 2003, at 10:40 AM, Ian Schorr wrote:
Yes, but it would be very nice if this could be done from the packet
view, as well.
I love the conversation list feature. However, when I'm analyzing a
trace and deciding that I want to concentrate on a particular
"conversation" based on something I'm seeing while examining the
packet view, I shouldn't have to bring up the conversation list (and
reprocess the entire trace), find the conversation that I want a
second time, and THEN filter down. Conversation list is for a
different mental "mode" of analysis.
I often find it useful to select "Follow TCP stream" from the packet
list, it's a great shortcut when I'm trying to isolate a conversation.
Sometimes I need the text reassembly, usually with the protocols I
examine, I don't. Usually I just want the "conversation" isolation.
I've also been thinking that it would be extremely nice if we added a
right-click option when an IP address field (or another L2 or L3
address) is selected that allows us to quickly build an address filter
(i.e. with IP address, it will automatically build an ip.addr==A.B.C.D
display filter).
Ian
