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credible58 edited this page Dec 26, 2019 · 1 revision

Welcome to the civ7200 wiki!

Background

civ7200 is a Wireshark plugin that parses the CI-V protocol used by a computer to control an Icom IC-7200 transceiver. The protocol is very poorly designed, and looks as though it grew generically (it must be difficult to support and extend). It's very quirky and this means that is difficult to parse.

LUA

The civ7200.lua is a Wireshark plugin written in (you guessed it) the LUA programming language. The advantage is that the .lua file can simply be copied into the LUA Plugins directory of any release of Wireshark on any platform and it will work. The disadvantage is it will operate more slowly than an equivalent C dissector, but this is of little importance as the trace data volumes are likely to be quite small.

To determine the correct directory for the plugin:

  1. Start Wireshark
  2. Click on Help in the main menu
  3. Choose About Wireshark from the dropdown
  4. Click on the Folders tab
  5. Note the folder with the name: Personal Lua Plugins

Install this plugin in the folder noted.

Postdissector

I struggled to get my original straight dissector into the dissector table and, as I was in a hurry, I circumvented the problem by writing it as a postdissector. This does mean that it will always be called no matter what type of trace is loaded. To avoid any suspicion of it causing performance problems, disable the CIV7200 when you are not using it. To do this:

  1. Start Wireshark
  2. Click Analyze in the main menu
  3. Choose Enable Protocols...
  4. Type civ into the Search box
  5. Uncheck CIV7200 and then click OK

Over To You

This is a rough and ready dissector. I was in a hurry and so just added the code and parsing I needed. Please feel free to change and improve.

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