Wireshark mailing list archives

Re: Time synchronization for capturing packets


From: Graham Bloice <graham.bloice () trihedral com>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:56:38 +0100

On 25/08/2011 10:30, Bartosz Kiziukiewicz wrote:
Hi,

I was wondering what would be the best solution for solving following problem.

I'm using two or more separate Windows machines for capturing traffic in a
few network points.
The problem is that every machine has a different RTC time (even if the
difference is a few seconds).
That complicates the correct correlation of traffic dumps.

What would be the best way to solve it?

I was thinking about some external time synchronization between machines.
However that would require additional network wiring and a separate NIC to
do this.
Also it would require to run some local SNTP software.
My concern also is that it will not allow a precise enough synchronization
due to the nature of Windows OS.

As I recall, the timestamp of the pcap packet is given by the WinPcap
driver, not the Wireshark itself.

Are there any other, better ways to do it?


Windows has built-in facilities to synchronise the time between machines. 
Have a look at what the w32tm executable can do for you:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w32tm%28WS.10%29.aspx

Later versions of windows add more functionality to the command. 

-- 
Regards,

Graham Bloice


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