TCP/IP Network Traffic Analysis with Wireshark Training Course

Network Analysis Overview

1. Essentials of the OSI reference model and TCP/IP networks.
2. Troubleshooting tools and methodologies.
3. Introduction to Wireshark.
4. What is Wireshark? Portable versions and available resources.
5. Wireshark GUI structure: Panes (Packet List, Details, Packet Bytes), Status Bar, and more.
6. Architecture and data processing flow; limitations on visibility with Wireshark.
7. Supported protocols and dissectors.
8. Preferences and configuration settings; global versus profile-specific settings.
9. Interpretation of time values.
10. Practical lab exercises.

Capturing Traffic

1. Key considerations prior to starting a capture.
2. Promiscuous mode.
3. Capture filters.
4. Automatic stop conditions.
5. Remote capture techniques.
6. Lab exercises.

Traffic Analysis: Tools and Approaches

1. Analytical checklists.
2. Utilizing features: name resolution, colorization, marking, ignoring, commenting, time references, and time shifts.
3. Understanding the Expert System.
4. Accessing options via Right-Click functionality.
5. Interpretation using reference patterns; impact of OS/driver Offload features.
6. Saving analysis results.
7. Lab exercises and case studies.

Traffic Analysis: Tools and Approaches (Continued)

1. Filtering traffic: Display filters (preparing "in-flight" filters, macros), and following streams.
2. Quantitative analysis.
   1. Basic predefined descriptive statistics and summaries: Capture Properties, Protocol Hierarchy, Conversations, Endpoints, Packet Lengths, and IP-specific metrics.
   2. Protocol-specific analysis (e.g., TCP Stream Graphs).
   3. Advanced custom statistics using I/O Graphs.
   4. Flow visualization techniques.

Traffic Analysis: Protocols

1. Data-Link Layer: Ethernet II.
2. Network Layer: IPv4.
3. Transport Layer: TCP, UDP.
   1. Packet loss and recovery mechanisms.
   2. Events such as Previous segment lost and Out-of-Order Segments.
   3. Duplicate ACKs and Fast Retransmissions.
   4. TCP Retransmissions.
   5. Zero Window, window changes, and other window-related issues.
4. Application Layer: HTTP, FTP.
5. Lab exercises and case studies.

Traffic Analysis: Common Issues in Network Performance Assessment

1. Root causes of performance degradation.
2. Packet loss analysis.
3. Bandwidth issues and a layered approach to measurement.
4. Latency: assessing end-to-end latency and visualization techniques.
5. Lab exercises.
6. (Wireshark) command-line tools:
   1. tshark (terminal-based Wireshark), dumpcap, rawshark, and tcpdump
   2. editcap, mergecap, capinfos, and text2pcap

Advanced Topics

1. Advanced filtering techniques and grouped I/O statistics.
2. Summary and Q&A session.