Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Kalyani Government Engineering College

M.Tech 1st Year 2nd Sem CSE

Sub: PGCSE-292 Computer Networking
Session-2020

Assignment-II - Packet tracing / sniffing using Wireshark

Objective-
To learn how protocols and layering are represented in packets. They are key concepts for structuring networks
that are covered in the text.
Introduction-
In this lab you will first need to read through "Wireshark Lab: Getting Started" (given as a resource in KGEC
moodle). This document and the exercises in that lab will prepare you for the lab itself. However, note that you
do not have to present the deliverables (mentioned in the "Wireshark getting started" pdf), as these are not
deliverables for this assignment (and those exercises should only be used as practice).
After going through the Introductory document of Wireshark packet sniffer and practiced the tasks, we’re now
ready to use Wireshark to investigate protocols in operation. In this lab, we’ll explore several aspects of the
HTTP protocol: the basic GET/response interaction, HTTP message formats, retrieving large HTML files,
retrieving HTML files with embedded objects, and HTTP authentication and security.

Assignment 2.1: The Basic HTTP GET/response interaction

Let’s begin our exploration of HTTP by downloading a very simple HTML file - one that is very short, and contains no
embedded objects. Do the following:

1. Start up your web browser.

2. Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer, as described in the Introductory lab (but don’t yet begin packet
capture). Enter “http” (just the letters, not the quotation marks) in the display-filter-specification
window, so that only captured HTTP messages will be displayed later in the packet-listing window.
(We’re only interested in the HTTP protocol here, and don’t want to see the clutter of all captured
packets).
3. Wait a bit more than one minute (we’ll see why shortly), and then begin Wireshark packet capture.
4. Enter the following to your browser http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file1.html
Your browser should display the very simple, one-line HTML file.
5. Stop Wireshark packet capture.

Your Wireshark window should look similar to the window shown in Figure 1. If you are unable to run
Wireshark on a live network connection, you can download a packet trace of the same as given in moodle. But
it better to use the online mode.
For downloaded Traces: Once you have downloaded the trace, you can load it into Wireshark and view the trace
using the File pull down menu, choosing Open, and then selecting the http-ethereal-trace-1 trace file. The
resulting display should look just like Figure 1 after applying the "http" filter.
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Kalyani Government Engineering College

Figure 1: A sample Wireshark Display after http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/ HTTPwireshark-

file1.html has been retrieved by your browser
(Note: You should ignore any HTTP GET and response for favicon.ico. If you see a reference to this file, it is
your browser automatically asking the server if it (the server) has a small icon file that should be displayed next
to the displayed URL in your browser. We'll ignore references to this pesky file in this lab and keep it for future
study.).

The example in Figure 1 shows in the packet-listing window that two HTTP messages were captured: the GET
message (from your browser to the gaia.cs.umass.edu web server) and the response message from the server to
your browser. The packet-contents window shows details of the selected message (in this case the HTTP GET
message, which is highlighted in the packet-listing window). Recall that since the HTTP message was carried
inside a TCP segment, which was carried inside an IP datagram, which was carried within an Ethernet frame,
Wireshark displays the Frame, Ethernet, IP, and TCP packet information as well. We want to minimize the
amount of non-HTTP data displayed (we’re interested in HTTP here, and will be investigating these other
protocols in later labs), so make sure the boxes at the far left of the Frame, Ethernet, IP and TCP information
 Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Kalyani Government Engineering College

have a plus sign (which means there is hidden, undisplayed information), and the HTTP line has a minus sign
(which means that all information about the HTTP message is displayed).

Task A: By looking at the information in the HTTP GET and response messages, answer the following (7)
questions. When answering the following questions, you should print out the GET and response messages (to
include the packet data in your own report, you may export the selected packet data as a text file. To do so, use
the File->Export->File... window, select file type as Plain text, and choose "Selected packet" and indicate where
in the message you’ve found the information that answers the following questions. (Note that the export
procedure might differ based on the platform on which you are running Wireshark; e.g., SUN, Windows, etc.)
As for all questions in this course it is important that you clearly indicate what your answer is, how you
obtained the answer, and (if applicable) discuss implications/insights regarding your answers. For example, in
the questions below, can you elaborate on why you may have observed what you observed?
Questions:
1. Is your browser running HTTP version 1.0 or 1.1? What version of HTTP is the server running?
2. What languages (if any) does your browser indicate that it can accept to the server? In the captured session, what
other information (if any) does the browser provide the server with regarding the user/browser?
3. What is the IP address of your computer? Of the gaia.cs.umass.edu server?
4. What is the status code returned from the server to your browser?
5. When was the HTML file that you are retrieving last modified at the server?
6. How many bytes of content are being returned to your browser?
7. By inspecting the raw data in the "packet bytes" pane, do you see any http headers within the data that are not
displayed in the "packet details" pane? If so, name one.

In your answer to question 5 above, you might have been surprised to find that the document you just retrieved
was last modified within a minute before you downloaded the document. That’s because (for this particular
file), the gaia.cs.umass.edu server is setting the file’s last-modified time to be the current time, and is doing so
once per minute. Thus, if you wait a minute between accesses, the file will appear to have been recently
modified, and hence your browser will download a “new” copy of the document.

Assignment 2.2: The HTTP CONDITIONAL GET/response interaction

Recall from previous discussion, that most web browsers perform object caching and thus perform a conditional
GET when retrieving an HTTP object. Before performing the steps below, make sure your browser’s cache is
empty. (To do this under Firefox, select Tools->Clear Private Data, or for Internet Explorer, select Tools-
>Internet Options->Delete File. These actions will remove cached files from your browser’s cache.) Now do the
following:

• Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above.
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
• Enter the following URL into your browser http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file2.html
Your browser should display a very simple five-line HTML file.
• Quickly enter the same URL into your browser again (or simply select the refresh button on your browser)
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification window, so that only captured
HTTP messages will be displayed later in the packet-listing window.
• (Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can use the http-ethereal-trace-2
packet trace to answer the questions below; see here. This trace file was gathered while performing the steps
above on one of the author’s computers.)
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Task B: For questions 8-11, write a brief but precise answer for each of the above questions. Note that your
answer may benefit from explaining and/or referring to some of your observations explicitly.

Questions:

8. Inspect the contents of the first HTTP GET request from your browser to the server. Do you see an “IF-
MODIFIED-SINCE” line in the HTTP GET?
9. Inspect the contents of the server response. Did the server explicitly return the contents of the file? How can you
tell?
10. Now inspect the contents of the second HTTP GET request from your browser to the server. Do you see an “IF-
MODIFIED-SINCE:” line in the HTTP GET? If so, what information follows the “IF-MODIFIED-SINCE:”
header?
11. What is the HTTP status code and phrase returned from the server in response to this second HTTP GET? Did the
server explicitly return the contents of the file? Explain.

Assignment 2.3: Retrieving Long Documents

In our examples thus far, the documents retrieved have been simple and short HTML files. Let’s next see what
happens when we download a long HTML file. Do the following:
• Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above.
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
• Enter the following URL into your browser http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-
file3.html Your browser should display the rather lengthy US Bill of Rights.
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification window, so that only
captured HTTP messages will be displayed.
• Note: For all cases you can use the given traces if you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network
connection,
In the packet-listing window, you should see your HTTP GET message, followed by a multiple-packet response
to your HTTP GET request. This multiple-packet response deserves a bit of explanation. Recall from previous
discussion that the HTTP response message consists of a status line, followed by header lines, followed by a
blank line, followed by the entity body. In the case of our HTTP GET, the entity body in the response is the
entire requested HTML file. In our case here, the HTML file is rather long, and at 4500 bytes is too large to fit
in one TCP packet. The single HTTP response message is thus broken into several pieces by TCP, with each
piece being contained within a separate TCP segment (see Figure 1.24 in the text). Each TCP segment is
recorded as a separate packet by Wireshark, and the fact that the single HTTP response was fragmented across
multiple TCP packets is indicated by the “TCP segment of a reassembled PDU” phrase displayed by Wireshark.
We stress here that there is no “TCP segment of a reassembled PDU” message in HTTP! In this regard, Figure 3
shows a screenshot of Wireshark displaying http-ethereal-trace-3 packet trace. In the listing of the captured
packets, packet No. 8 shows the HTTP GET request and packet No. 14 shows the corresponding HTTP
response. It can be seen that the packets No. 10, 11 and 13 are labeled with “TCP segment of a reassembled
PDU”. By clicking on the HTTP response, i.e. packet No. 14, the packet details pane shows [4 Reassembled
TCP Segments (4816 bytes): #10(1460), #11(1460), #13(1460), #14(436)] (see Figure 3). Additionally, the
packet bytes pane shows a new tab titled Reassembled TCP which shows the entire received HTTP response.
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Figure 3: Wireshark display showing http-ethereal-trace-3 packet trace

A more convenient way to view the entire data (i.e. all HTTP requests and responses transported in a TCP
stream) is using a Wireshark feature called "Following TCP Streams". By right-clicking on any of the TCP
packets associated with a given TCP stream and selecting the "Follow TCP Stream" menu item, a new window
pops up that contains the data exchanged in the selected stream. Figure 4, shows the "Follow TCP Stream"
window for the GET /ethereal-labs/lab2-3.html HTTP/1.1 request and its complete associated
response. In this window, the non-printable characters are replaced by dots. However, the choice of Raw or
ASCII in this window, affects the way you can save the entire stream. That is, if Raw is selected, the stream is
saved as a binary file preserving the non-printable characters, whereas in the case of ASCII, the stream is saved
as a text file in which the non-printable characters are replaced by dots. Please note how Wireshark has changed
(and applied) the display filter to show only the packets in the selected stream.
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Figure 4: The "Follow TCP Stream" window

Task C: For questions 12-15, first write a brief but precise answer for each of the above questions. Note that
your answer may benefit from explaining and/or referring to some of your observations explicitly.

Questions:

12. How many HTTP GET request messages were sent by your browser?

13. How many data-containing TCP segments were needed to carry the single HTTP response?

14. What is the status code and phrase associated with the response to the HTTP GET request?

15. Is there any HTTP header information in the transmitted data associated with TCP segmentation? For
this question you may want to think about at what layer each protocol operates, and how the protocols at
the different layers interoperate.

Assignment 2.4: HTML Documents with Embedded Objects

Now that we’ve seen how Wireshark displays the captured packet traffic for large HTML files, we can look at
what happens when your browser downloads a file with embedded objects, i.e., a file that includes other objects
(in this example we have image files) that are stored on another server(s). Do the following:
• Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above.
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
 Department of Computer Science and Engineering
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• Enter the following URL into your browser http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-

file4.html Your browser should display a short HTML file with two images. These two images are
referenced in the base HTML file. That is, the images themselves are not contained in the HTML;
instead the URLs for the images are contained in the downloaded HTML file. As discussed in the
textbook, your browser will have to retrieve these logos from the indicated web sites. Our publisher’s
logo is retrieved from the www.aw-bc.com web site. The image of our book’s cover is stored at the
manic.cs.umass.edu server.
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification window, so that only
captured HTTP messages will be displayed.
• Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can use the http-ethereal-
trace-4 packet trace.

Task D: For questions 16-17, first write a brief but precise answer for each of the above questions. Note that
your answer may benefit from explaining and/or referring to some of your observations explicitly.

Questions:

16. How many HTTP GET request messages were sent by your browser? To which Internet addresses were
these GET requests sent?
17. Can you tell whether your browser downloaded the two images serially, or whether they were
downloaded from the two web sites in parallel? Explain.

Assignment 2.4: HTTP Authentication

Finally, let’s try visiting a web site that is password-protected and examine the sequence of HTTP message
exchanged for such a site. The URL http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/protected_pages/HTTP-wireshark-
file5.html is password protected. The username is “wireshark-students” (without the quotes), and the password
is “network” (again, without the quotes). So let’s access this “secure” password-protected site. Do the
following:
• Make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above, and close down your browser. Then,
start up your browser
• Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
• Enter the following URL into your browser http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-
labs/protected_pages/HTTP-wireshark-file5.html Type the requested user name and password into the
pop up box.
• Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification window, so that only
captured HTTP messages will be displayed later in the packet-listing window.
• Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can use the http-ethereal-
trace-5 packet trace

Now let’s examine the Wireshark output. You might want to first read up on HTTP authentication by reviewing
the easy-to-read material on “HTTP Access Authentication Framework” at
http://frontier.userland.com/stories/storyReader$2159

Task D: You will not need to report answers for questions 18-19.
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Questions:

18. What is the server’s response (status code and phrase) in response to the initial HTTP GET message
from your browser?
19. When your browser sends the HTTP GET message for the second time, what new field is included in the
HTTP GET message?

The username (wirehsark-students) and password (network) that you entered are encoded in the string of
characters (d2lyZXNoYXJrLXN0dWRlbnRzOm5ldHdvcms=) following the “Authorization: Basic” header in
the client’s HTTP GET message. While it may appear that your username and password are encrypted, they are
simply encoded in a format known as Base64 format. The username and password are not encrypted! To see
this, go to http://www.base64decode.org/ and enter the base64-encoded string d2lyZXNoYXJrLXN0dWRlbnRz
into the "Decode from base64" text box and press "Go". Voila! You have translated from Base64 encoding to
ASCII encoding, and thus should see your username! To view the password, enter the remainder of the string
Om5ldHdvcms= and press decode. Since anyone can download a tool like Wireshark and sniff packets (not just
their own) passing by their network adaptor, and anyone can translate from Base64 to ASCII (you just did it!), it
should be clear to you that simple passwords on WWW sites are not secure unless additional measures are
taken.

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Last Date of Submission: 18th March, 2020 (by 5 p.m.).
Answer only those questions which you understand and can be done you.