NEWS

Wireshark 4.3.0 Release Notes

 This is an experimental release intended to test new features for
 Wireshark 4.4.

 What is Wireshark?

  Wireshark is the world’s most popular network protocol analyzer. It is
  used for troubleshooting, analysis, development and education.

 What’s New

  Improved display filter support for value strings (optional string
  representations for numeric fields).

  Display filter functions can be implemented as runtime-loadable C
  plugins.

  Plugin registration API was refactored. Plugin authors must update
  their plugins as described below.

  Many other improvements have been made. See the “New and Updated
  Features” section below for more details.

  New and Updated Features

   The following features are new (or have been significantly updated)
   since version 4.2.0:

     • Display filter syntax-related enhancements:

        • Better handling of comparisons with value strings. Now the
       display filter engine can correctly handle cases where multiple
       different numeric values map to the same value string, including
       but not limited to range-type value strings.

        • Fields with value strings now support regular expression
       matching.

        • Date and time values now support arithmetic, with some
       restrictions: the multiplier/divisor must be an integer or float
       and appear on the right-hand side of the operator.

        • The keyword "bitand" can be used as an alternative syntax for
       the bitwise-and operator.

        • Functions alone can now be used as an entire logical
       expression. The result of the expression is the truthiness of the
       function return value (or of all values if more than one). This
       is useful for example to write "len(something)" instead of
       "len(something) != 0". Even more so if a function returns itself
       a boolean value, it is now possible to write
       "bool_test(some.field)" instead of having to write
       "bool_test(some.field) == True" (both forms are now valid).

        • Display filter references can be written without curly braces.
       It is now possible to write `$frame.number` instead of
       `${frame.number}` for example.

        • Added new display filter functions to test various IP address
       properties. Check the wireshark-filter(5) manpage for more
       information.

        • Display filter macros can be written with a semicolon after
       the macro name before the argument list, e.g.
       `${mymacro;arg1;…​;argN}`, instead of `${mymacro:arg1;…​;argN}`.
       The version with semicolons works better with pop-up suggestions
       when editing the display filter, so the version with the colon
       might be removed in the future.

        • Display filter macros can be written using a function-like
       notation. The macro `${mymacro:arg1;…​;argN}` can be written
       `$mymacro(arg1,…​,argN)`.

     • Display filter functions can be implemented as libwireshark
       plugins. Plugins are loaded during startup from the usual binary
       plugin configuration directories. See the `ipaddr.c` source file
       in the distribution for an example of a display filter C plugin
       and the doc/plugins.example folder for generic instructions how
       to build a plugin.

     • Display filter autocompletions now also include display filter
       functions.

     • The display filter macro configuration file has changed format.
       It now uses the same format as the "dfilters" file and has been
       renamed accordingly to "dmacros". Internally it no longer uses
       the UAT API and the display filter macro GUI dialog has been
       updated. There is some basic migration logic implemented but it
       is advisable to check that the "dfilter_macros" (old) and
       "dmacros" (new) files in the profile directory are consistent.

     • When selecting "Manage Interfaces" from "Capture Options",
       Wireshark only attempts to reconnect to rpcap (remote) hosts that
       were connected to in the last session, instead of every remote
       host that the current profile has ever connected to. Issue
       17484[1]

     • Adding interfaces at startup is about twice as fast, and has many
       fewer UAC pop-ups when npcap is installed with access restricted
       to Administrators on Windows

     • The Resolved Addresses dialog only shows what addresses and ports
       are present in the file (not including information from static
       files), and selected rows or the entire table can be saved or
       copied to the clipboard in several formats.

     • New "Tools › Install Plugin" option provides a convenient method
       to install a binary plugin to the personal folder.

     • The personal binary plugins folder now has higher priority than
       the global folder.

     • The binary plugins folder path no longer uses an X.Y version
       component. Plugins are required to add the ABI version to the
       file name.

     • Truncated fields in the detail view are now displayed as "Field
       name […]: data" instead of "Field name [truncated]: data"

     • When capturing files in multiple file mode, a pattern that places
       the date and time before the index number can be used (e.g.,
       foo_20240714110102_00001.pcap instead of
       foo_00001_20240714110102.pcap). This causes filenames to sort in
       chronological order across file sets from different captures. The
       File Set dialog has been updated to handle the new pattern, which
       has been capable of being produced by tshark since version 3.6.0

     • The "Follow Stream" dialog can now show delta times between turns
       and all packets and events.

  Removed Features and Support

     • The tshark `-G` option with no argument is deprecated and will be
       removed in a future version. Use `tshark -G fields` to produce
       the same report.

  Removed Dissectors

   The Parlay dissector has been removed.

  New Protocol Support

   EGNOS Message Server (EMS) file format, MAC NR Framed
   (mac-nr-framed), RF4CE Network Layer (RF4CE), and RF4CE Profile
   (RF4CE Profile)

  Updated Protocol Support

     • IPv6: The "show address detail" preference is now enabled by
       default. The address details provided have been extended to
       include more special purpose address block properties
       (forwardable, globally-routable, etc).

   Too many other protocol updates have been made to list them all here.

   EGNOS Messager Server (EMS) files

   u-blox GNSS receivers

  Major API Changes

     • Plugin registration API was refactored. Plugin authors must do
       the following: 1 - Remove the existing boilerplate (version,
       want_major` and `want_minor` and plugin API declarations. 2 - Add
       a struct ws_module to the plugin. 3 - Call one of the
       WIRESHARK_PLUGIN_REGISTER_* macros. See README.plugins sections 5
       and doc/plugins.example/hello.c for details and examples.

 Getting Wireshark

  Wireshark source code and installation packages are available from
  https://www.wireshark.org/download.html.

  Vendor-supplied Packages

   Most Linux and Unix vendors supply their own Wireshark packages. You
   can usually install or upgrade Wireshark using the package management
   system specific to that platform. A list of third-party packages can
   be found on the download page[2] on the Wireshark web site.

 File Locations

  Wireshark and TShark look in several different locations for
  preference files, plugins, SNMP MIBS, and RADIUS dictionaries. These
  locations vary from platform to platform. You can use "Help › About
  Wireshark › Folders" or `tshark -G folders` to find the default
  locations on your system.

 Getting Help

  The User’s Guide, manual pages and various other documentation can be
  found at https://www.wireshark.org/docs/

  Community support is available on Wireshark’s Q&A site[3] and on the
  wireshark-users mailing list. Subscription information and archives
  for all of Wireshark’s mailing lists can be found on the web site[4].

  Bugs and feature requests can be reported on the issue tracker[5].

  You can learn protocol analysis and meet Wireshark’s developers at
  SharkFest[6].

 How You Can Help

  The Wireshark Foundation helps as many people as possible understand
  their networks as much as possible. You can find out more and donate
  at wiresharkfoundation.org[7].

 Frequently Asked Questions

  A complete FAQ is available on the Wireshark web site[8].

 References

   1. https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/issues/17484
   2. https://www.wireshark.org/download.html
   3. https://ask.wireshark.org/
   4. https://www.wireshark.org/lists/
   5. https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/issues
   6. https://sharkfest.wireshark.org
   7. https://wiresharkfoundation.org
   8. https://www.wireshark.org/faq.html