Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] Startup Option?

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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 19:44:58 -0800
On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 03:17:22PM -0600, Joe Masters wrote:
> Can I pass a generic Device Option using the "-i" switch?  
> 
> I am trying to add Ethereal to the Startup in Windows and may have
> multiple machine configurations that this could get installed on.
> 
> I was wondering if there was a way to pass a generic Network Device ID
> that would use the First active NIC on any system?

What do you mean by "a generic device option" or "a generic network
device ID"? If you mean "can specify as an argument to the '-i' switch a
value that means 'use the first active NIC'", then by default, it picks
the first interface that libpcap/WinPcap supplies, but there's no
guarantee that it's "active", and

	1) it's not clear that there's any way for WinPcap to determine
	   whether an interface is "active";

	2) the order of the interfaces might not be what you want, so
	   you might not get the interface you want on a multi-homed
	   machine.

What are the interfaces *other* than the ones you want?