RAWSHARK(1)

📦

version 4.7.4 · 17 versions

🌸 NAME 🌸

rawshark(1) — Dump and analyze raw pcap data. Bestie, this is the whole vibe: raw packets go in, matching fields come out. 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

rawshark [ -d <encap:linktype>|<proto:protoname> ]
[ -F <field to display> ] [ -l ] [ -m <bytes> ]
[ -o <preference setting> ] ... [ -p ] [ -r <pipe>|- ]
[ -R <read (display) filter> ] [ -s ] [ -S <field format> ] [ options ]

rawshark -h|--help

rawshark -v|--version

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so Rawshark reads a stream of packets from a file or a pipe, prints one line that describes its output, and then prints a set of matching fields for each packet on stdout. That's the whole main-character move. 💅

🧚 INPUT 🧚

Unlike TShark, Rawshark makes no assumptions about encapsulation or input. Like, none. Zero. It is not guessing for you, bestie. The -d and -r flags must be specified in order for it to run — that is not optional, periodt. One or more -F flags should be specified in order for the output to be useful. The other flags listed above follow the same conventions as Wireshark and TShark. 🫶

Rawshark expects input records with the following format by default. This matches the format of the packet header and packet data in a pcap-formatted file on disk.

           struct rawshark_rec_s {
               uint32_t ts_sec;      /* Time stamp (seconds) */
               uint32_t ts_usec;     /* Time stamp (microseconds) */
               uint32_t caplen;      /* Length of the packet buffer */
               uint32_t len;         /* "On the wire" length of the packet */
               uint8_t data[caplen]; /* Packet data */
           };

If -p is supplied rawshark expects the following format. This matches the struct pcap_pkthdr structure and packet data used in libpcap or Npcap. This structure’s format is platform-dependent; the size of the tv_sec field in the struct timeval structure could be 32 bits or 64 bits. For rawshark to work, the layout of the structure in the input must match the layout of the structure in rawshark. Note that this format will probably be the same as the previous format if rawshark is a 32-bit program, but will not necessarily be the same if rawshark is a 64-bit program. 😭

           struct rawshark_rec_s {
               struct timeval ts;    /* Time stamp */
               uint32_t caplen;      /* Length of the packet buffer */
               uint32_t len;         /* "On the wire" length of the packet */
               uint8_t data[caplen]; /* Packet data */
           };

In either case, the endianness (byte ordering) of each integer must match the system on which rawshark is running. No cap. 💀

💖 OUTPUT 💖

If one or more fields are specified via the -F flag, Rawshark prints the number, field type, and display format for each field on the first line as "packet number" 0. For each record, the packet number, matching fields, and a "1" or "0" are printed to indicate if the field matched any supplied display filter. A "-" is used to signal the end of a field description and at the end of each packet line. 💫

For example, the flags -F ip.src -F dns.qry.type might generate the following output:

           0 FT_IPv4 BASE_NONE - 1 FT_UINT16 BASE_HEX -
           1 1="1" 0="192.168.77.10" 1 -
           2 1="1" 0="192.168.77.250" 1 -
           3 0="192.168.77.10" 1 -
           4 0="74.125.19.104" 1 -

Note that packets 1 and 2 are DNS queries, and 3 and 4 are not. Adding -R "not dns" still prints each line, but there’s an indication that packets 1 and 2 didn’t pass the filter:

           0 FT_IPv4 BASE_NONE - 1 FT_UINT16 BASE_HEX -
           1 1="1" 0="192.168.77.10" 0 -
           2 1="1" 0="192.168.77.250" 0 -
           3 0="192.168.77.10" 1 -
           4 0="74.125.19.104" 1 -

Also note that the output may be in any order, and that multiple matching fields might be displayed. Like, do not come for the ordering, okay? It is doing its thing. 🦋

👑 OPTIONS 👑

-d <encapsulation> — Specify how the packet data should be dissected. The encapsulation is of the form type:value, where type is one of:
- encap:name — Packet data should be dissected using the libpcap/Npcap data link type (DLT) name, e.g. encap:EN10MB for Ethernet. Names are converted using pcap_datalink_name_to_val(). A complete list of DLTs can be found at https://www.tcpdump.org/linktypes.html. 🌈
- encap:number — Packet data should be dissected using the libpcap/Npcap LINKTYPE_ number, e.g. encap:105 for raw IEEE 802.11 or encap:101 for raw IP.
- proto:protocol — Packet data should be passed to the specified Wireshark protocol dissector, e.g. proto:http for HTTP data.
-F <field to display> — Add the matching field to the output. Fields are any valid display filter field. More than one -F flag may be specified, and each field can match multiple times in a given packet. A single field may be specified per -F flag. If you want to apply a display filter, use the -R flag. 💅
-h|--help — Print the version number and options and exit.
-l — Flush the standard output after the information for each packet is printed. And here is the exact tea: this is not, strictly speaking, line-buffered if -V was specified; however, it is the same as line-buffered if -V wasn’t specified, as only one line is printed for each packet, and, as -l is normally used when piping a live capture to a program or script, so that output for a packet shows up as soon as the packet is seen and dissected, it should work just as well as true line-buffering. We do this as a workaround for a deficiency in the Microsoft Visual C++ C library. 😭

This may be useful when piping the output of TShark to another program, as it means that the program to which the output is piped will see the dissected data for a packet as soon as TShark sees the packet and generates that output, rather than seeing it only when the standard output buffer containing that data fills up.

-m <memory limit bytes> — Limit rawshark’s memory usage to the specified number of bytes. POSIX (non-Windows) only.
-o <preference>:<value> — Set a preference value, overriding the default value and any value read from a preference file. The argument to the option is a string of the form prefname:value, where prefname is the name of the preference (which is the same name that would appear in the preference file), and value is the value to which it should be set.
-p — Assume that packet data is preceded by a pcap_pkthdr struct as defined in pcap.h. On some systems the size of the timestamp data will be different from the data written to disk. On other systems they are identical and this flag has no effect.
-r <pipe>|- — Read packet data from input source. It can be either the name of a FIFO (named pipe) or - to read data from the standard input, and must have the record format specified above. 🫶

If you are sending data to rawshark from a parent process on Windows you should not close rawshark’s standard input handle prematurely, otherwise the C runtime might trigger an exception.

-R|--read-filter <read (display) filter> — Cause the specified filter (which uses the syntax of read/display filters, rather than that of capture filters) to be applied before printing the output. Read filters and display filters are synonymous in rawshark.
-s — Allows standard pcap files to be used as input, by skipping over the 24 byte pcap file header. 🎀
-S <field format> — Use the specified format string to print each field. The following formats are supported:
- %D — Field name or description, e.g. "Type" for dns.qry.type
- %N — Base 10 numeric value of the field.
- %S — String value of the field.

For something similar to Wireshark’s standard display ("Type: A (1)") you could use %D: %S (%N). ⭐

-v|--version — Print the full version information and exit.
-Y|--display-filter <read (display) filter> — Cause the specified filter (which uses the syntax of read/display filters, rather than that of capture filters) to be applied before printing the output. Read filters and display filters are synonymous in rawshark. 💜

💅 DISSECTION OPTIONS 💅

--disable-all-protocols — bestie, this turns off dissection for literally every protocol. all of them. no dissection. periodt.
--disable-protocol <proto_name>[,<proto_name>,...] — disables dissection of proto_name. if you set proto_name to ALL, it overrides your chosen profile’s default enabled protocol list and temporarily disables all protocols. yes, chaos mode.
--disable-heuristic <short_name> — disables dissection of that heuristic protocol. bye 👋
--enable-protocol <proto_name>[,<proto_name>,...] — enables dissection of proto_name. use ALL as the proto_name to override your chosen profile’s default disabled protocol list and temporarily enable all protocols which are enabled by default. also super important: if a protocol shows up in both --disable-protocol and --enable-protocol, the protocol is enabled. this is how you temporarily disable all protocols but keep a little exceptions list. example:

--disable-protocol ALL --enable-protocol eth,ip

--enable-heuristic <short_name> — enables dissection of that heuristic protocol. slay.
-K <keytab> — loads kerberos crypto keys from the specified keytab file. you can use this option multiple times to load keys from several files. example: -K krb5.keytab
-n — disables network object name resolution (such as hostname, TCP and UDP port names). the -N option might override this one, so don’t fight it.
-N <name resolving flags> — turns on name resolving only for particular types of addresses and port numbers, while name resolving for other types of addresses and port numbers is turned off. this option (along with -n) can be specified multiple times; the last value given overrides earlier ones. this option and -n override the options from the preferences, including preferences set via the -o option. if both -N and -n options are not present, the values from the preferences are used, which default to -N dmN.

the argument is a string that may contain the letters:

d — to enable resolution from captured DNS packets
g — to enable IP address geolocation information lookup from configured MaxMind databases
m — to enable MAC address resolution
n — to enable network address resolution
N — to enable using external resolvers (e.g., DNS) for network address resolution; no effect without n also enabled.
s — to enable address resolution using SNI information found in captured handshake packets
t — to enable transport-layer port number resolution
v — to enable VLAN IDs to names resolution

--only-protocols <protocols> — only enables dissection of these protocols, comma separated. disables everything else. main character protocol energy only 💅
-t (a|ad|adoy|d|dd|e|r|rc|u|ud|udoy)[.[N]]|.[N] — sets the format of the packet timestamp displayed in the default time column. the format can be one of:
- a absolute: the absolute time, as local time in your time zone, is the actual time the packet was captured, with no date displayed
- ad absolute with date: the absolute date, displayed as YYYY-MM-DD, and time, as local time in your time zone, is the actual time and date the packet was captured
- adoy absolute with date using day of year: the absolute date, displayed as YYYY/DOY, and time, as local time in your time zone, is the actual time and date the packet was captured
- d delta: the delta time is the time since the previous packet was captured
- dd delta_displayed: the delta_displayed time is the time since the previous displayed packet was captured
- e epoch: the time in seconds since epoch (Jan 1, 1970 00:00:00)
- r relative: the relative time is the time elapsed between the first packet and the current packet
- rc relative to capture start: the relative to capture start time is the time elapsed between the start of the capturing and the current packet
- u UTC: the absolute time, as UTC with a "Z" suffix, is the actual time the packet was captured, with no date displayed
- ud UTC with date: the absolute date, displayed as YYYY-MM-DD, and time, as UTC with a "Z" suffix, is the actual time and date the packet was captured
- udoy UTC with date using day of year: the absolute date, displayed as YYYY/DOY, and time, as UTC with a "Z" suffix, is the actual time and date the packet was captured

.[N] sets the precision: N is the number of decimals (0 through 9). if you use . without N, it automatically determines precision from the trace.

the default format is relative with precision based on capture format. cute and automatic ✨

-u <s|hms> — specifies how packet timestamp formats in -t which are relative times (i.e. relative, delta, and delta_displayed) are displayed. valid choices are:
- s — for seconds
- hms — for hours, minutes, and seconds

the default format is seconds.

🔥 DIAGNOSTIC OPTIONS 🔥

--log-level <level> — sets the active log level. supported levels in lowest to highest order are "noisy", "debug", "info", "message", "warning", "critical", and "error". messages at each level and higher will be printed, for example "warning" prints "warning", "critical", and "error" messages and "noisy" prints all messages. levels are case insensitive. so yes, WARNING and warning are the same vibe check.
--log-fatal <level> — aborts the program if any messages are logged at the specified level or higher. for example, "warning" aborts on any "warning", "critical", or "error" messages. dramatic? maybe. useful? absolutely.
--log-fatal-count <count> — the amount of fatal log messages which may pass before the program is aborted. it’s giving “how many warnings until we crash out” energy.
--log-domains <list> — only prints messages for the specified log domains, e.g. "GUI,Epan,sshdump". list of domains must be comma-separated. can be negated with "!" as the first character (inverts the match).
--log-debug <list> — forces the specified domains to log at the "debug" level. list of domains must be comma-separated. can be negated with "!" as the first character (inverts the match).
--log-noisy <list> — forces the specified domains to log at the "noisy" level. list of domains must be comma-separated. can be negated with "!" as the first character (inverts the match).
--log-fatal-domains <list> — aborts the program if any messages are logged for the specified log domains. list of domains must be comma-separated.
--log-file <path> — writes log messages and stderr output to the specified file. one file to hold all the receipts ✨

📖 READ FILTER SYNTAX 📖

for a complete table of protocol and protocol fields that are filterable in Rawshark see the wireshark-filter(4) manual page. that’s the master list, bestie.

🗂️ FILES 🗂️

these files contain various Wireshark configuration settings.

💖 Preferences 💖

the preferences files contain global (system-wide) and personal preference settings. if the system-wide preference file exists, it is read first, overriding the default settings. if the personal preferences file exists, it is read next, overriding any previous values. note: if the command line flag -o is used (possibly more than once), it will in turn override values from the preferences files.

the preferences settings are in the form prefname:value, one per line, where prefname is the name of the preference and value is the value to which it should be set; white space is allowed between : and value. a preference setting can be continued on subsequent lines by indenting the continuation lines with white space. a # character starts a comment that runs to the end of the line:

# Vertical scrollbars should be on right side?
# TRUE or FALSE (case-insensitive).
gui.scrollbar_on_right: TRUE

the global preferences file is looked for in the wireshark directory under the share subdirectory of the main installation directory. on macOS, this would typically be /Application/Wireshark.app/Contents/Resources/share; on other UNIX-compatible systems, such as Linux, \*BSD, Solaris, and AIX, this would typically be /usr/share/wireshark/preferences for system-installed packages and /usr/local/share/wireshark/preferences for locally-installed packages; on Windows, this would typically be C:\Program Files\Wireshark\preferences.

on UNIX-compatible systems, the personal preferences file is looked for in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wireshark/preferences, (or, if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wireshark does not exist while $HOME/.wireshark does exist, $HOME/.wireshark/preferences); this is typically $HOME/.config/wireshark/preferences. on Windows, the personal preferences file is looked for in %APPDATA%\Wireshark\preferences (or, if %APPDATA% isn’t defined, %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Wireshark\preferences).

🚫 Disabled (Enabled) Protocols 🚫

the disabled_protos files contain system-wide and personal lists of protocols that have been disabled, so that their dissectors are never called. the files contain protocol names, one per line, where the protocol name is the same name that would be used in a display filter for the protocol:

http
tcp     # a comment

if a protocol is listed in the global disabled_protos file it cannot be enabled by the user. no take-backs.

the global disabled_protos file uses the same directory as the global preferences file.

the personal disabled_protos file uses the same directory as the personal preferences file.

the disabled_protos files list only protocols that are enabled by default but have been disabled; protocols that are disabled by default (such as some postdissectors) are not listed. there are analogous enabled_protos files for protocols that are disabled by default but have been enabled. so there’s lore on both sides 💅

🧚 Heuristic Dissectors 🧚

the heuristic_protos files contain system-wide and personal lists of heuristic dissectors and indicate whether they are enabled or disabled. the files contain heuristic dissector unique short names, one per line, followed by a comma and 0 for disabled and 1 for enabled:

quic,1
rtcp_stun,1
rtcp_udp,1
rtp_stun,0
rtp_udp,0
tls_tcp,1

the global heuristic_protos file uses the same directory as the global preferences file.

the personal heuristic_protos file uses the same directory as the personal preferences file.

🌐 Name Resolution (hosts) 🌐

So the entries in the hosts files — both the global one and the personal one in your preferences directory — get used to resolve IPv4 and IPv6 addresses before anything else even gets a shot at it. The file is straight-up standard hosts file syntax: one IP address and one name per line, separated by whitespace. And if the personal hosts file exists, it overrides the one sitting in the global directory. 💅

Capture filter name resolution is a whole different beast — that's handled by libpcap on UNIX-compatible systems (think Linux, macOS, *BSD, Solaris, and AIX) and by Npcap on Windows. So basically, the Wireshark personal hosts file does not get consulted for capture filter name resolution. Not its job, not its lane. 🙈

Name Resolution (subnets)

If an IPv4 address can't be translated via name resolution — like, no exact match found, bestie 😭 — then a partial match is attempted via the subnets file. Both the global subnets file and personal subnets files get used if they exist.

Every line in this file is an IPv4 address, then a subnet mask length separated by nothing but a /, then a name separated by whitespace. The address has to be a full IPv4 address, but any values beyond the mask length are just ignored afterwards. Noted, moving on. ✨

An example is:

# Comments must be prepended by the # sign! 192.168.0.0/24
ws_test_network

A partially matched name gets printed as "subnet-name.remaining-address". So for example, "192.168.0.1" under the subnet above would print as "ws_test_network.1"; and if the mask length above had been 16 rather than 24, the printed address would be "ws_test_network.0.1". Math is mathing, we love to see it. 🧚

Name Resolution (ethers)

The ethers files get consulted to correlate 6-byte EUI-48 and 8-byte EUI-64 hardware addresses to names. Personal ethers file first, and if an address isn't found there, the global ethers file gets tried next.

The format is similar to the one defined by ethers(5) on some UNIX-like systems. Each line has one hardware address and a name, separated by whitespace (tabs or spaces, dealer's choice). The hexadecimal digits of the hardware address are separated by colons (:), dashes (-) or periods (.). And the same separator character must be used consistently within one address — no mixing, that's chaotic. 🙅 A # kicks off a comment that runs to the rest of the line. Both 6-byte MAC and 8-byte EUI-64 addresses are supported. These four lines are all valid lines of an ethers file:

ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff          Broadcast
c0-00-ff-ff-ff-ff          TR_broadcast
00.00.00.00.00.00          Zero_broadcast
00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00    EUI64_zero_broadcast

Note that this accepts a greater variety of formats than the file defined by ethers(5) on most UN*X systems. We're flexible like that. 💅

The global ethers file is looked for in the /etc directory on UNIX-compatible systems — Linux, macOS, *BSD, Solaris, and AIX, you know the lineup — and in the main installation directory (for example, C:\Program Files\Wireshark) on Windows systems.

The personal ethers file is looked for in the same directory as the personal preferences file.

Capture filter name resolution is handled by libpcap on UNIX-compatible systems and Npcap on Windows. As such, the Wireshark personal ethers file will not be consulted for capture filter name resolution. Same energy as before, no cap. 🫶

Name Resolution (manuf)

The manuf file matches the 3-byte vendor portion of a 6-byte hardware address with the manufacturer's name; it can also contain well-known MAC addresses and address ranges specified with a netmask. Format is similar to the ethers files, except that entries such as:

00:00:0C      Cisco     Cisco Systems, Inc

can be provided — with the 3-byte OUI and both an abbreviated and a long name for a vendor. And entries such as:

00-00-0C-07-AC/40     All-HSRP-routers

can be specified, with a MAC address and a mask indicating how many bits of the address must match. Take the entry above: it has 40 significant bits, or 5 bytes, and would match addresses from 00-00-0C-07-AC-00 through 00-00-0C-07-AC-FF. And the mask need not be a multiple of 8 — icon behaviour honestly. 👑

A global manuf file is looked for in the same directory as the global preferences file, and a personal manuf file is looked for in the same directory as the personal preferences file.

In earlier versions of Wireshark, official information from the IEEE Registration Authority was distributed in this format as the global manuf file. That info is now compiled in to speed up program startup, but the internal information can be written out in this format with tshark -G manuf. History lesson over, you're welcome. 📚

In addition to the manuf file, another file with the same format, wka, is looked for in the global directory. This file ships with Wireshark and contains data about well-known MAC addresses and address ranges assembled from various non-IEEE but respected sources. Real ones. 🌈

Name Resolution (services)

The services file translates port numbers into names. Both the global services file and personal services files get used if they exist.

Standard services file syntax over here: each line has one (service) name and one transport identifier separated by white space. The transport identifier includes one port number and one transport protocol name (typically tcp, udp, or sctp) separated by a /.

An example is:

mydns       5045/udp     # My own Domain Name Server mydns
5045/tcp     # My own Domain Name Server

In earlier versions of Wireshark, official information from the IANA Registry was distributed in this format as the global services file. Again — now compiled in to speed up program startup, but the internal information can be written out in this format with tshark -G services. See the pattern? Obsessed. 🎀

Name Resolution (ipxnets)

The ipxnets files correlate 4-byte IPX network numbers to names. Global ipxnets file gets tried first, and if that address isn't found there, the personal one gets tried next.

Format is the same as the ethers file, except each address is four bytes instead of six. Bonus: the address can also be represented as a single hexadecimal number, like the IPX world usually does, rather than four hex octets. For example, these four lines are valid lines of an ipxnets file:

C0.A8.2C.00              HR
c0-a8-1c-00              CEO
00:00:BE:EF              IT_Server1
110f                     FileServer3

The global ipxnets file is looked for in the /etc directory on UNIX-compatible systems — Linux, macOS, *BSD, Solaris, and AIX — and in the main installation directory (for example, C:\Program Files\Wireshark) on Windows systems.

The personal ipxnets file is looked for in the same directory as the personal preferences file.

Name Resolution (ss7pcs)

The ss7pcs file translates SS7 point codes to names. It gets read from the personal configuration directory.

Every line in this file is one network indicator, followed by a dash, followed by a point code in decimal, and then a node name separated by whitespace. An example is:

2-1234 MyPointCode1

Short, sweet, slays. ✨

Name Resolution (vlans)

The vlans file translates VLAN tag IDs into names. It's read from the personal configuration directory too.

Every line here is one VLAN tag ID separated by whitespace from a name. An example is:

123    Server-Lan
2049   HR-Client-LAN

Coloring Rules (Color Filters)

The coloring_rules.jsonc file holds both system-wide and personal coloring rules. It contains an array of named JSON objects with these key:value pairs:

[
    { "Filter name": {
        "filter": "<display filter string>",
        "foreground": "#rrggbb or rrggbb",
        "background": "#rrggbb or rrggbb",
        "enabled": "<boolean value>"
        }
    }
]

The global coloring_rules.jsonc file uses the same directory as the global preferences file. The personal coloring_rules.jsonc file uses the same directory as the personal preferences file. It's written through the View › Coloring Rules... dialog. 🎨

Heads up bestie: if the global coloring_rules.jsonc file exists, it is used only if the personal coloring_rules.jsonc file does not exist. Global and personal color filters are not merged. No blending, no fusion, no mashup.

There's also a legacy colorfilters file, which was the default name and format prior to Wireshark 5.0 and Stratoshark 1.0. Each line contains one filter, starting with the string displayed in the dialog box, followed by the corresponding display filter. Then the background and foreground colors get appended:

# a comment
@tcp@tcp@[59345,58980,65534][0,0,0]
@udp@udp@[28834,57427,65533][0,0,0]

Wireshark will read the legacy colorfilters file if it exists, followed by coloring_rules.jsonc. Wireshark will write the legacy colorfilters file only if it exists. Conditional queen. 💅

Plugins

Wireshark looks for plugins in both a personal plugin folder and a global plugin folder. Two homes, both valid. 🏠

On UNIX-compatible systems — Linux, macOS, *BSD, Solaris, and AIX — the global plugin directory is lib/wireshark/plugins/ (on some systems substitute lib64 for lib) under the main installation directory (for example, /usr/local/lib/wireshark/plugins/). The personal plugin directory is $HOME/.local/lib/wireshark/plugins.

On macOS, if Wireshark is installed as an application bundle, the global plugin folder is instead %APPDIR%/Contents/PlugIns/wireshark.

On Windows, the global plugin folder is plugins/ under the main installation directory (for example, C:\Program Files\Wireshark\plugins\). The personal plugin folder is %APPDATA%\Wireshark\plugins (or, if %APPDATA% isn't defined, %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Wireshark\plugins).

Lua plugins live in the plugin folders; compiled plugins live in subfolders of the plugin folders, with the subfolder name being the Wireshark minor version number (X.Y). Then there's another hierarchical level for each Wireshark plugin type (libwireshark, libwiretap and codecs). For example, the location for a libwireshark plugin foo.so (foo.dll on Windows) would be PLUGINDIR/X.Y/epan (libwireshark used to be called libepan; the other folder names are codecs and wiretap). Nested like a set of matryoshka dolls, honestly iconic. 🪆

Note

Also, on UNIX-compatible systems, Lua plugins (but not binary plugins) may also be placed in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wireshark/plugins — or, if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wireshark does not exist while $HOME/.wireshark does exist, in $HOME/.wireshark/plugins. 🐚✨

Small but important: a dissector plugin module may support more than one protocol; there is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between dissector plugin modules and protocols. Protocols supported by a dissector plugin module are enabled and disabled in the same way as protocols built into Wireshark. 💖

🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

WIRESHARK_CONFIG_DIR — this one overrides the location of personal configuration files. On UNIX-compatible systems, such as Linux, macOS, \*BSD, Solaris, and AIX, it defaults to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wireshark (or, if that directory doesn’t exist but $HOME/.wireshark does exist, $HOME/.wireshark); this is typically $HOME/.config/wireshark. On Windows, it defaults to %APPDATA%\Wireshark (or, if %APPDATA% isn’t defined, %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Wireshark). Available since Wireshark 3.0. 🗂️
WIRESHARK_DEBUG_WMEM_OVERRIDE — setting this environment variable forces the wmem framework to use the specified allocator backend for all allocations, regardless of which backend is normally specified by the code. This is mainly useful to developers when testing or debugging. See README.wmem in the source distribution for details. 🧪
WIRESHARK_RUN_FROM_BUILD_DIRECTORY — this environment variable causes the plugins and other data files to be loaded from the build directory (where the program was compiled) rather than from the standard locations. It has no effect when the program in question is running with root (or setuid) permissions on UNIX-compatible systems, such as Linux, macOS, \*BSD, Solaris, and AIX. 🛠️
WIRESHARK_DATA_DIR — this environment variable causes the various data files to be loaded from a directory other than the standard locations. It has no effect when the program in question is running with root (or setuid) permissions on UNIX-compatible systems. 📁
ERF_RECORDS_TO_CHECK — this environment variable controls the number of ERF records checked when deciding if a file really is in the ERF format. Setting this environment variable a number higher than the default (20) would make false positives less likely. 🔍
IPFIX_RECORDS_TO_CHECK — this environment variable controls the number of IPFIX records checked when deciding if a file really is in the IPFIX format. Setting this environment variable a number higher than the default (20) would make false positives less likely. 🔎
WIRESHARK_ABORT_ON_DISSECTOR_BUG — if this environment variable is set, Rawshark will call abort(3) when a dissector bug is encountered. abort(3) will cause the program to exit abnormally; if you are running Rawshark in a debugger, it should halt in the debugger and allow inspection of the process, and, if you are not running it in a debugger, it will, on some OSes, assuming your environment is configured correctly, generate a core dump file. This can be useful to developers attempting to troubleshoot a problem with a protocol dissector. 💀
WIRESHARK_ABORT_ON_TOO_MANY_ITEMS — if this environment variable is set, Rawshark will call abort(3) if a dissector tries to add too many items to a tree (generally this is an indication of the dissector not breaking out of a loop soon enough). abort(3) will cause the program to exit abnormally; if you are running Rawshark in a debugger, it should halt in the debugger and allow inspection of the process, and, if you are not running it in a debugger, it will, on some OSes, assuming your environment is configured correctly, generate a core dump file. This can be useful to developers attempting to troubleshoot a problem with a protocol dissector. 😭

💫 SEE ALSO 💫

Go hang out with the whole crew: wireshark-filter(4), wireshark(1), tshark(1), editcap(1), pcap(3), dumpcap(1), text2pcap(1), pcap-filter(7) or tcpdump(8). 🫶

📝 NOTES 📝

This is the manual page for Rawshark 4.7.4. Rawshark is part of the Wireshark distribution. The latest version of Wireshark can be found at https://www.wireshark.org. 🌐

HTML versions of the Wireshark project man pages are available at https://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages. 🎀

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Rawshark uses the same packet dissection code that Wireshark does, as well as using many other modules from Wireshark; see the list of authors in the Wireshark man page for a list of authors of that code. 💜

okay byeee bestie — this was RAWSHARK(1), Rawshark 4.7.4, dated 2026-10-08. go dissect something iconic 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from

arch rolling: wireshark-cli 4.7.4-1 · GPL-2.0-only
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms