Summary

---

We have given you a pretty high-level overview of Ethereal, its various features, and supporting programs. We covered the history of Ethereal, its compatibility with other sniffers, and its supported protocols. We gave you a brief look into the Ethereal GUI and the filter capabilities, because these areas will be covered in detail in later chapters. We also covered the programs that come with Ethereal that add additional functionality by manipulating capture files.

We explored several scenarios for using Ethereal in your network architecture. Spend some time getting to know your network and the way it is connected. Knowing how your network is segmented will greatly help with placing Ethereal to capture the information you need.

Finally, we covered an example network troubleshooting methodology. It is good practice to use this methodology every time you troubleshoot a problem. Once again, spending time getting to know your network, and the protocols running on it will help make troubleshooting a lot easier.

---