Re: Cannot get external capture (extcap) interface to work with my new plugin.

[Dario Lombardo <lomato () gmail com>]

On Thu, Jan 3, 2019 at 5:36 PM hdv <henri.de.veer () gmail com> wrote:

> On 2-1-2019 18:30, Dario Lombardo wrote:
>
> You cannot trace your code using prints because they're handled by the
> caller (dumpcap). Have a look at the other extcaps for --debug and
> --debug-file options to see how it's solved there.
>
> I only see g_warning/g_error/g_debug messages in the other extcap plugins.
> There is no descent example that really works from the user perspective.
> The function g_error is not really useful because it forcefully "breaks"
> the program. See my original post where I already explained this.
>
> Only extcap_cmdline_debug() does display something in the debug log, when
> enabled. I see it used g_debug() that ends up in the debug log file. Still
> a pity that you can't show any popup or error message in a plugin. Or am I
> missing something?
No you are not. This is a step missing in the original extcap code
(wireshark side). However lately a new support for extcap toolbars has been
added. This allows a live message passing between the gui and the extcap.
Unfortunately it is not as straightforward as the main text interface and
requires a reactor (or similar) to handle the messages, but if you take a
look at extcap_example.py you'll get an idea. In C I haven't seen any
working implementation of the toolbars: it can work for sure but the work
required compared to python is much more.

> I really would expect that the stderr channel could be used to report
> errors in some way. Tested it, does not display anything until you stop the
> capture. It would be better to display it immediately. You should assume
> when anybody uses a plugin we can report errors to the user in a sensible
> matter. The end user should not need to enable debugging or build the code
> to get errors. I my example I want to report an error to the user when the
> plugin cannot make a connection to the external device for example.
>
> I have the impression that most extcap plugins need some overhauling of
> code. Most are very different with respect to some "boilerplate" code
> everybody uses. So it took me quite some time to cherry pick pieces of the
> code which looks to be "best practice". Maybe a template/skeletion could be
> a good idea?
I'm not sure I've got your point. Which overhauling are you referring to
and which boilerplate or best practice code are you talking about? Can you
point to some examples?
A template is somewhat impossible to write: the best we did was to have
some base functions (extcap-base) and some working examples for them.


> So what is the status of the current extcap plugins, are they still all
> functional? I can imagine they are harder to test because some are
> proprietary/need special hardware.
They're expected to be. If they are not, feel free to open bugs on
bugzilla. Extcaps in the source tree except ciscodump don't require special
hardware at all.

> PS: Don't understand me wrong about the above remarks: Wireshark is one of
> the best documented open source projects I have ever seen in my 25+ years
> of software experience. Most projects can take it as an example how to
> document and handle it. So I really want to contribute to it, and even get
> it better.
>
> Another question off topic: When not a "member" all posts to the
> wireshark-dev mailing list are moderated so it takes some time to get a
> post into this list. Who can become member? Is there somewhere described
> what the procedure is? (I still have some questions and remarks etc. about
> testing and documentation for example)
>
> Note: I have seen all documentation on the development process. I did not
> find anything about the mailing list about any membership.
It has been a loooong time since I subscribed and I don't recall how I did
it. But googling I found this:
https://www.wireshark.org/mailman/listinfo/wireshark-dev. Did you try it?

>
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