Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Problem: i only sniff my own packets, not network packets
On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 01:43:00PM +0100, El Piraña wrote:
> I've tried this in other network area with same results, by ethernet
> and by wireless without any positive result, and i don't know what to
> do. I thought it would be about a switch on the network, but in any
> case the wireless APs works as a hub, so there shouldn't be problems,
> and in any case if there is a switch on a network it shouldn't show so
> much info as DNS request or similar...
This issue is caused by your machine being connected to a switch. The
packets you do see from other machines are either broadcast, multicast
or traffic going to a destination the switch does not recognize at the
moment (so it floods it out all ports).
Wireless does act as a hub, but it is difficult/impossible to get some
wireless cards into "monitor mode" so they actually capture the other
traffic. See http://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/WLAN for more
details. If your wireless LAN has proper encryption on it though, you
still won't be able to see other machine's traffic.
Steve
