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I suspect my server has a huge load of http requests from its clients. I want to measure the volume of http traffic. How can I do it with Wireshark? Or probably there is an alternative solution using another tool?

This is how a single http request/response traffic looks in Wireshark. The ping is generated by WinAPI funciton ::InternetCheckConnection() alt text http://yowindow.com/shared/ping.png

Thanks!

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4 Answers 4

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79

Ping packets should use an ICMP type of 8 (echo) or 0 (echo reply), so you could use a capture filter of:

icmp

and a display filter of:

icmp.type == 8 || icmp.type == 0

For HTTP, you can use a capture filter of:

tcp port 80

or a display filter of:

tcp.port == 80

or:

http

Note that a filter of http is not equivalent to the other two, which will include handshake and termination packets.

If you want to measure the number of connections rather than the amount of data, you can limit the capture or display filters to one side of the communication. For example, to capture only packets sent to port 80, use:

dst tcp port 80

Couple that with an http display filter, or use:

tcp.dstport == 80 && http

For more on capture filters, read "Filtering while capturing" from the Wireshark user guide, the capture filters page on the Wireshark wiki, or pcap-filter (7) man page. For display filters, try the display filters page on the Wireshark wiki. The "Filter Expression" dialog box can help you build display filters.

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    Sorry, I have forgot to mention the details of the "ping" request. This is Windows way of pinging. It seems icmp has no relation to my case.
    – par
    Dec 21, 2009 at 8:40
  • See the screenshot of the ping in Wireshark I just have attached
    – par
    Dec 21, 2009 at 8:42
  • I changed the question from 'ping' to 'http' so you answer will not make sense in context, but I +1 because it's a good ping answer.
    – Simeon Pilgrim
    Dec 21, 2009 at 9:08
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Simply use a DisplayFilter http like this:

display filter example

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    When I do that I get 0 displayed and 45k received, and I hit websites, any ideas? I'm looking at Wi-Fi: en0
    – SuperUberDuper
    Sep 17, 2019 at 11:53
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It's not a ping. A ping, as already said by outis, is an ICMP echo request. Your trace displays the establishment and immediate termination of an HTTP connection, and that's what InternetCheckConnection() does. The IP in question, 77.222.43.228, resolves to http://repkasoft.com/, which, I guess, is the URL you pass to InternetCheckConnection().

You can filter traffic with this IP by using capture or display filter host == 77.222.43.228.

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Using Wireshark 1.2+ , I would run this batch file:

:: Script to save a wireshark trace
:: tshark -D to get interface id
@echo off
C:
cd C:\Temp\NetTracing
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Wireshark
echo Tracing host 127.1 or 172.1.1.1 or 10.0.0.1

tshark.exe -i 4 -a duration:900 -S -f "tcp port 80" -w trace.cap
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