Protocol Verification Using Tcpdump and Wireshark

It is a must to use Tcpdump (to capture) and/or Wireshark (to analyse) to verify protocol implementation when doing TCP/IP network programming.

First, it can verify if the message sent by me is as intended, thus it can expose any bug in my protocol implementation. Today a bug has been found in this sense: I use Java DataOutputStream.write(int) to send a short, so only the lowest byte of the short has been sent.

Second, it can detect any inconsistency between the protocol specification, i.e., what I think the message should look like, and the actual messages that are sent by the other party, i.e., out of my control. Today, several inconsistencies have been found in this way. For instance, the length of a message (a TCP packet) is different from that defined in the spec. Clearly the spec in my hand is out of dated.

Without Tcpdump and Wireshark, I would be like walking in the dark when implementing my protocol.