Later when you want to revisit the traffic capture, you can go to “File > Open” to import a saved PCAP file. You might also see the extension “PCAPNG,” which stands for “PCAP Next Generation” and is a new version of the PCAP file format.

PCAP stands for “Packet CAPture” and is the file extension used for Wireshark capture files. Then, go to “File > Save” to save the PCAP file. This will tell Wireshark to stop capturing packets. You can save the captured packets by first clicking on the red square button on the top toolbar: You should see packets listed in the Wireshark window like this: You can double-click on an interface to see traffic details: Working With PCAP FilesĪfter you open up Wireshark, it will start capturing traffic on multiple network interfaces. Since we will go through some examples, feel free to use a PCAP file to follow along! Head to the Wireshark wiki to find some sample capture files. In this article, we will go through some basics of capturing traffic with Wireshark. You can use it to diagnose network issues and find network vulnerabilities. It lets you dive into captured traffic and analyze what is going on within a network. Wireshark is the world’s most popular network protocol analyzer.

If you are a computer network or security enthusiast, you’ve probably heard of Wireshark. How to use Wireshark to capture network traffic.

Wireshark tcpdump