How to use the packet capture utility in PCoIP Zero Client Firmware

Since many customers are unlikely to have access to a port mirroring switch, a new packet capture feature was added in firmware 4.7.0. It is designed to assist with troubleshooting Unified Communications issues.
 

Note: The packet capture utility will not capture PCoIP UDP session data and cannot be used for session performance diagnostics.

How to capture packets:

• Log into the Administrator Web Interface (AWI), navigate to Diagnostics->Packet Capture.
• The capture can be started and stopped from this page.
• The capture will stop automatically once the capture buffer is full (currently sized at 20 MBytes).
• Hitting the "Download" link will allow the capture to be saved.
• The capture is in binary format and must be run through a post-processing script in order to convert it to a pcap readable by wireshark.

Requirements:

• Windows or Linux host with Wireshark and Python 2.x installed.
• The PATH variable should include c:\python & c:\program files\wireshark (the text2pcap utility should already be in the Wireshark directory).
• For ease of running, copy the script and the captured (.bin) file to the Wireshark directory.

Usage:

• Linux: - ./convert_to_pcap.py [-l logging_level] [-o output_filename] <input_file>
• Windows: python convert_to_pcap.py [-l logging_level] [-o output_filename] <input_file>
  • Can be run from Windows command prompt as Administrator

Script:

Script file required to convert file.

Options:

• -l: Logging level (0=TERSE, 5=Verbose)
• -o: Output Filename (optional - if none provided a .pcap with the same name as the input file is created)

The timestamp will come out as a UTC timestamp if it was captured after the TOD module was up, or with a "1999--06-01" if it was captured pre-uptime.