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Please does wire shark need to use my data for its work? .i e. Must I be online(using my own data) for it to start capturing packets?

asked 13 Jun '17, 13:43

Ozor's gravatar image

Ozor
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One Answer:

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Wireshark can load any previously captured traffic from a file without being on-line. To resolve IP addresses to hostnames (if not saved in the file) will need access to an external name resolution system.

To capture traffic, the interface you wish to capture on must be enabled, however, Wireshark does not need access to any external resources to do so (apart from name resolution as noted above).

answered 13 Jun '17, 14:38

grahamb's gravatar image

grahamb ♦
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accept rate: 22%

Thanks. But for the initial capture do I need to b online?

(13 Jun '17, 23:26) Ozor

It depends... If you want to capture network traffic, then you'll need to have a network interface that is up, connected to a network. If you want to capture other types on traffic (eg. USB) then you don't have to.

(14 Jun '17, 00:51) Jaap ♦