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Protocol analyzer

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RobyWayne (talk | contribs) at 06:47, 3 November 2005 (Bot-assisted manual disambiguation of Network. (You can help!)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

A protocol analyzer is a hardware device or software used to verify that a protocol on a digital network is operating correctly, or to extract data about the protocol, possibly including statistics or data.

Example uses

  • A protocol analyzer for a token ring network could detect that the token has been lost or the presence of too many tokens (verifying the protocol).
  • A protocol analyzer could detect that messages are being sent to a NIC, if the NIC did not report receiving the messages then this would localize the failure to the NIC.
  • A protocol analyzer could detect excessive messages being sent by a port, detecting an error in the implementation.
  • A protocol analyzer could collect statistics on the amount of traffic (number of messages) from a process detecting the need for more bandwidth or a better method.
  • A protocol analyzer could be used to extract messages and reassemble into a compete form the traffic from a process, allowing it to be reverse engineered.
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