operation of this program is the same regardless of the platform on which it was installed,
with the exception of general file menu operations. Because of the similarities, we will
cover the use of the program once.
3.2.4.2 GUI Overview
After Ethereal is loaded, you will see three screens, as illustrated in Figure 9.1. Each
of these frames serves a unique purpose for the user, and will present the following
information.
• Packet Summary—This is a list of all the captured packets, which includes the
packet number (1–65, 535), time-stamp, source and destination address, protocol,
and some brief information about the data in the packet.
• Packet Detail—This window contains more detailed information about the
packet, such as MAC addresses, IP address, packet header information, packet
size, packet type, and more. This is for those people interested in what type of
data a packet contains, but don’t care about the actual data. For example, if
you are troubleshooting a network, you can use this information to narrow
down possible problems.
• Packet Dump (Hex and ASCII)—This field contains the standard three columns
of information found in most sniffers. On the left is the memory value of the
packet; the middle contains the data in hex; and the right contains the ASCII
equivalent of the hex data. This is the section that lets you actually peer into
the packet and see what type of data is being transmitted, character-by-character.
