User Guide

Customizing Wireshark
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10.4. Control Protocol dissection
The user can control how protocols are dissected.
Each protocol has its own dissector, so dissecting a complete packet will typically involve several
dissectors. As Wireshark tries to find the right dissector for each packet (using static "routes" and heuristics
"guessing"), it might choose the wrong dissector in your specific case. For example, Wireshark won't know
if you use a common protocol on an uncommon TCP port, e.g. using HTTP on TCP port 800 instead of
the standard port 80.
There are two ways to control the relations between protocol dissectors: disable a protocol dissector
completely or temporarily divert the way Wireshark calls the dissectors.
10.4.1. The "Enabled Protocols" dialog box
The Enabled Protocols dialog box lets you enable or disable specific protocols; all protocols are enabled
by default. When a protocol is disabled, Wireshark stops processing a packet whenever that protocol is
encountered.
Note!
Disabling a protocol will prevent information about higher-layer protocols from being
displayed. For example, suppose you disabled the IP protocol and selected a packet
containing Ethernet, IP, TCP, and HTTP information. The Ethernet information would be
displayed, but the IP, TCP and HTTP information would not - disabling IP would prevent it
and the other protocols from being displayed.
To enable/disable protocols select the Enabled Protocols... item from the Analyze menu; Wireshark will
pop up the "Enabled Protocols" dialog box as shown in Figure 10.5, “The "Enabled Protocols" dialog box”.