xviii Introduction
The first half of this book gives you the prerequisite knowledge you will
need to understand packet analysis and Wireshark. The second half of the
book is devoted entirely to practical cases that you could easily encounter in
day-to-day network management.
Whether you are a network technician, a network administrator, a chief
information officer, a desktop technician, or even a network security analyst,
you have a lot to gain from understanding and using the packet-analysis tech
-
niques described in this book.
Concepts and Approach
I am generally a really laid-back guy, so when I teach a concept, I try to do so
in a really laid-back way. This holds true for the language used in this book.
It is very easy to get lost in technical jargon when dealing with technical con-
cepts, but I have tried my best to keep things as casual as possible. I’ve made
all the definitions clear, straightforward, and to the point, without any added
fluff. After all, I’m from the great state of Kentucky, so I try to keep the big
words to a minimum. (You’ll have to forgive me for some of the backwoods
country verbiage you’ll find throughout the text.)
If you really want to learn packet analysis, you should make it a point to
master the concepts in the first several chapters, because they are integral to
understanding the rest of the book. The second half of the book is purely
practical. You may not see these exact scenarios in your workplace, but you
should be able to apply the concepts you learn from them in the situations
you do encounter.
Here is a quick breakdown of the contents of the chapters in this book:
Chapter 1: Packet Analysis and Network Basics
What is packet analysis? How does it work? How do you do it? This chap-
ter covers the basics of network communication and packet analysis.
Chapter 2: Tapping into the Wire
This chapter covers the different techniques you can use to place a
packet sniffer on your network.
Chapter 3: Introduction to Wireshark
Here, we’ll look at the basics of Wireshark—where to get it, how to use it,
what it does, why it’s great, and all of that good stuff.
Chapter 4: Working with Captured Packets
After you have Wireshark up and running, you will want to know how to
interact with captured packets. This is where you’ll learn the basics.
Chapter 5: Advanced Wireshark Features
Once you have learned to crawl, it’s time to take off running. This chap-
ter delves into the advanced Wireshark features, taking you under the
hood to show you some of the less apparent operations.