Re: [Firebird-devel] Wire protocol specification and wireshark dissector

[Jason C. <ja...@ja...>]

From: mark chambers [mailto:mar...@ob...] 
Sent: 16 July 2009 09:29
To: fir...@li...
Subject: [Firebird-devel] Wire protocol specification and wireshark
dissector

Hi folks,

>I've been working on fixing up the wireshark plugin for Firebird.  One of
the things that would >have really helped in this process would have been
up-to-date documentation.  After reading >what I could find, including
Carlos Guzman Alvarez's paper, I decided that I would be best off >parsing
the xdr_protocol routine in protocol.cpp and generating the required
wireshark >code.  This I have done. As a byproduct, I have produced an HTML
document that I have requested >to be posted on
http://www.firebirdnews.org.  
Followed by some stuff I didn’t understand....

>How do you feel about including this in the production code?

>Of course, I'll make the parser/generator code available. It's written in
Delphi but would be >easy to port.

Mark,
This would be really useful and if the balance of keeping docs in sync with
source (because the docs are in the source) and keeping the source readable
can be kept, then it gets my vote.

I am not a FB developer, so not sure about how much it obfuscates the flow
of the code, but I do use Wireshark and the addition of an FB plugin would
be great.  Currently I have to use tools that intercept the traffic before
passing it on, which is fine, but no where near as lightweight or production
friendly as setting up a mirror port on a switch and having no operational
impact.

Regards,
Jason Chapman.