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[[PreForeword]]

=== Foreword

Wireshark is one of those programs that many network managers would love to be
able to use, but they are often prevented from getting what they would like from
Wireshark because of the lack of documentation.

This document is part of an effort by the Wireshark team to improve the
usability of Wireshark.

We hope that you find it useful and look forward to your comments.

[[PreAudience]]

=== Who should read this document?

The intended audience of this book is anyone using Wireshark.

This book will explain all the basics and also some of the advanced features
that Wireshark provides. As Wireshark has become a very complex program since
the early days, not every feature of Wireshark may be explained in this book.

This book is not intended to explain network sniffing in general and it
will not provide details about specific network protocols. A lot of
useful information regarding these topics can be found at the Wireshark
Wiki at link:{wireshark-wiki-url}[].

By reading this book, you will learn how to install Wireshark, how to use the
basic elements of the graphical user interface (such as the menu) and what's
behind some of the advanced features that are not always obvious at first sight.
It will hopefully guide you around some common problems that frequently appear
for new (and sometimes even advanced) users of Wireshark.

[[PreAck]]

=== Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the whole Wireshark team for their assistance.
In particular, the authors would like to thank:

* Gerald Combs, for initiating the Wireshark project and funding to do this
  documentation.

* Guy Harris, for many helpful hints and a great deal of patience in reviewing
  this document.

* Gilbert Ramirez, for general encouragement and helpful hints along the way.

The authors would also like to thank the following people for their helpful
feedback on this document:

* Pat Eyler, for his suggestions on improving the example on  generating a backtrace.

* Martin Regner, for his various suggestions and corrections.

* Graeme Hewson, for a lot of grammatical corrections.

The authors would like to acknowledge those man page and README authors for the
Wireshark project from who sections of this document borrow heavily:

* Scott Renfro from whose `mergecap` man page <<AppToolsmergecap>> is derived.

* Ashok Narayanan from whose `text2pcap` man page <<AppToolstext2pcap>> is derived.

[[PreAbout]]

=== About this document

This book was originally developed by mailto:{wsug-author-email2}[Richard
Sharpe] with funds provided from the Wireshark Fund. It was updated by
mailto:{wsug-author-email3}[Ed Warnicke] and more recently redesigned and
updated by mailto:{wsug-author-email}[Ulf Lamping].

It was originally written in DocBook/XML and converted to AsciiDoc by
Gerald Combs.

You will find some specially marked parts in this book:

[WARNING]
.This is a warning
====
You should pay attention to a warning, otherwise data loss might occur.
====

[NOTE]
.This is a note
====
A note will point you to common mistakes and things that might not be obvious.
====

[TIP]
.This is a tip
====
Tips are helpful for your everyday work using Wireshark.
====

[[PreDownload]]

=== Where to get the latest copy of this document?

The latest copy of this documentation can always be found at
{wireshark-users-guide-url}.

[[PreFeedback]]

=== Providing feedback about this document

Should you have any feedback about this document, please send it to the
authors through mailto:{wireshark-dev-list-email}[].
