Re: Do we really need port preferences for dissectors?

[Alexis La Goutte <alexis.lagoutte () gmail com>]

On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 6:11 PM, Michael Mann <mmann78 () netscape net> wrote:

> I've ran across a bunch of dissectors lately that don't have an IANA
> registered port, so they add a port preference.  This is done is one of two
> ways:
> 1. Assigning their "randomly picked" port number to the preference,
> possibly requiring a user to change (set to 0) if it interferes with their
> traffic.  Since these are usually niche protocols, I can understand someone
> being annoyed by the "interference".
> 2. Defaulting port preference to 0, then making sure it's non-zero when
> registering with the (TCP/UDP) dissector table.  If not careful, sometimes
> the dissector isn't registered at all, so Decode As can't be used.
>
> Since Decode As can also be persistent, wouldn't that be a better way to
> (force users to) go?  To me it has similar logic/justification as when I
> removed the "subdissector preferences" in favor of Decode As.  While it
> would be nice to have users go to a single place to decide a "heuristic
> hierarchy" (a subject that is touched on from time to time), having port
> preferences seems to spread it out more than necessary.
>
> I'm hesitant because of the number of backwards compatibility issues it
> could introduce, but if we converted the preferences into the Decode As
> structure (if found), wouldn't that alleviate a lot of it?
>
> I'm more okay with keeping "range" preferences for protocols (at least for
> now) as that seems a more tedious task to do with Decode As.
Hi Michael,

I can be a good idea... because Preference and Decode as is redundancy...
but yes need have option to "convert" actual pref !

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