dumpcap Capture Examples

Before I get into the dumpcap command syntax and other details, I want to chat about why you want to use tshark or any command lint tool. Simply put, working from the command line allows a tremendous amount of consistency and flexibility.

Consistency

When you try to have someone perform your capture using the Wireshark GUI, there are many opportunities for errors as well as just being very time consuming. When you have the command line syntax figured out you can put it in an email, batch file or document ensuring the client is doing exactly what you wanted. The added bonus is that working from, the command line is usually more responsive that remotely controlling a GUI over possibly slow links.

Flexibility

As I mentioned earlier, using the command line allows you to put the command in a batch file or document. This is incredibly useful if you wanted to schedule a capture, or if you wanted to configure a computer to automatically start capturing when it’s turned on. Other examples would be setting a desktop shortcut for the client to start a capture or kicking off a capture from a monitoring system that allows you to run a batch file when an error occurs.

In this video I will cover some of the common command line capture scenarios as well as determining what your index is and testing your commands.