What is Packet Capture? - SonicWALL

Using Packet Capture
Starting and Stopping Packet Capture
The Packet Capture screen has buttons for starting and stopping a packet capture. You can start a packet
capture that uses default settings without configuring specific criteria for packet capture, display, FTP
export, and other settings. If you start a default packet capture, the SonicWALL appliance will capture all
packets except those for internal communication, and will stop when the buffer is full or when you click
Stop.
Starting Packet Capture
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Navigate to the Packet Capture page in the UI.
See “Accessing Packet Capture in the UI” on page 5.
Under Packet Capture, optionally click Reset.
The Packet Capture page displays several lines of statistics above the Start and Stop buttons. You can click
Reset to set the statistics back to zero.
Under Packet Capture, click Start.
To refresh the packet display windows to show new buffer data, click Refresh.
You can view the captured packets in the Captured Packets, Packet Detail, and Hex Dump sections of the
screen. See “Viewing the Captured Packets” on page 6.
Stopping Packet Capture
Step 1
Step 2
Navigate to the Packet Capture page in the UI.
See “Accessing Packet Capture in the UI” on page 5.
Under Packet Capture, click Stop.
Viewing the Captured Packets
The UI provides three windows to display different views of the captured packets. The following sections
describe the viewing windows:
• “About the Captured Packets Window” on page 6
• “About the Packet Detail Window” on page 8
• “About the Hex Dump Window” on page 9
About the Captured Packets Window
The Captured Packets window displays the following statistics about each packet:
• # - The packet number relative to the start of the capture
• Time - The date and time that the packet was captured
• Ingress - The SonicWALL appliance interface on which the packet arrived is marked with an asterisk
(*). The subsystem type abbreviation is shown in parentheses. Subsystem type abbreviations are defined
in Table 1.
6 SonicOS Enhanced Packet Capture