Lab Using Wireshark to Examine Ethernet Frames

Topology

Objectives
Part 1: Examine the Header Fields in an Ethernet II Frame
Part 2: Use Wireshark to Capture and Analyze Ethernet Frames

Background / Scenario
When upper layer protocols communicate with each other, data flows down the Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI) layers and is encapsulated into a Layer 2 frame. The frame composition is dependent
on the media access type. For example, if the upper layer protocols are TCP and IP and the media access is
Ethernet, then the Layer 2 frame encapsulation will be Ethernet II. This is typical for a LAN environment.
When learning about Layer 2 concepts, it is helpful to analyze frame header information. In the first part of this
lab, you will review the fields contained in an Ethernet II frame. In Part 2, you will use Wireshark to capture
and analyze Ethernet II frame header fields for local and remote traffic.

Required Resources

1 PC (Windows 7, Vista, or XP with Internet access with Wireshark installed)

Part 1: Examine the Header Fields in an Ethernet II Frame

In Part 1, you will examine the header fields and content in an Ethernet II Frame. A Wireshark capture will be
used to examine the contents in those fields.

Step 1: Review the Ethernet II header field descriptions and lengths.

Preamble

Destination
Address

Source
Address

Frame
Type

Data

FCS

8 Bytes

6 Bytes

6 Bytes

2 Bytes

46 1500 Bytes

4 Bytes

Step 2: Examine the network configuration of the PC.

This PC host IP address is 10.20.164.22 and the default gateway has an IP address of 10.20.164.17.

2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public.

Page 1 of 7

Lab Using Wireshark to Examine Ethernet Frames

Step 3: Examine Ethernet frames in a Wireshark capture.

The Wireshark capture below shows the packets generated by a ping being issued from a PC host to its
default gateway. A filter has been applied to Wireshark to view the ARP and ICMP protocols only. The
session begins with an ARP query for the MAC address of the gateway router, followed by four ping requests
and replies.

Step 4: Examine the Ethernet II header contents of an ARP request.

The following table takes the first frame in the Wireshark capture and displays the data in the Ethernet II
header fields.

2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public.

Page 2 of 7

Lab Using Wireshark to Examine Ethernet Frames

Field

Value

Description

Preamble

Not shown in capture

This field contains synchronizing bits, processed by the NIC

hardware.

Destination Address

Broadcast
(ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)

Source Address

Dell_24:2a:60
(5c:26:0a:24:2a:60)

Layer 2 addresses for the frame. Each address is 48 bits

long, or 6 octets, expressed as 12 hexadecimal digits, 09,A-F.
A common format is 12:34:56:78:9A:BC.
The first six hex numbers indicate the manufacturer of the
network interface card (NIC), the last six hex numbers are
the serial number of the NIC.
The destination address may be a broadcast, which contains
all ones, or a unicast. The source address is always unicast.

Frame Type

0x0806

For Ethernet II frames, this field contains a hexadecimal

value that is used to indicate the type of upper-layer protocol
in the data field. There are numerous upper-layer protocols
supported by Ethernet II. Two common frame types are:
Value
Description
0x0800 IPv4 Protocol
0x0806

Address resolution protocol (ARP)

Data

ARP

Contains the encapsulated upper-level protocol. The data

field is between 46 1,500 bytes.

FCS

Not shown in capture

Frame Check Sequence, used by the NIC to identify errors

during transmission. The value is computed by the sending
machine, encompassing frame addresses, type, and data
field. It is verified by the receiver.

What is significant about the contents of the destination address field?

_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Why does the PC send out a broadcast ARP prior to sending the first ping request?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is the MAC address of the source in the first frame? _______________________
What is the Vendor ID (OUI) of the Sources NIC? __________________________
What portion of the MAC address is the OUI?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is the Sources NIC serial number? _________________________________

Part 2: Use Wireshark to Capture and Analyze Ethernet Frames

In Part 2, you will use Wireshark to capture local and remote Ethernet frames. You will then examine the
information that is contained in the frame header fields.

2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public.

Page 3 of 7

Lab Using Wireshark to Examine Ethernet Frames

Step 1: Determine the IP address of the default gateway on your PC.

Open a command prompt window and issue the ipconfig command.
What is the IP Address of the PC Default Gateway? ________________________

Step 2: Start capturing traffic on your PCs NIC.

a. Open Wireshark.
b. On the Wireshark Network Analyzer toolbar, click the Interface List icon.

c.

On the Wireshark: Capture Interfaces window, select the interface to start traffic capturing by clicking the
appropriate check box, and then click Start. If you are uncertain of what interface to check, click Details
for more information about each interface listed.

d. Observe the traffic that appears in the Packet List window.

Step 3: Filter Wireshark to display only ICMP traffic.

You can use the filter in Wireshark to block visibility of unwanted traffic. The filter does not block the capture
of unwanted data; it only filters what to display on the screen. For now, only ICMP traffic is to be displayed.
In the Wireshark Filter box, type icmp. The box should turn green if you typed the filter correctly. If the box is
green, click Apply to apply the filter.

2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public.

Page 4 of 7

Lab Using Wireshark to Examine Ethernet Frames

Step 4: From the command prompt window, ping the default gateway of your PC.
From the command window, ping the default gateway using the IP address that you recorded in Step 1.

Step 5: Stop capturing traffic on the NIC.

Click the Stop Capture icon to stop capturing traffic.

Step 6: Examine the first Echo (ping) request in Wireshark.

The Wireshark main window is divided into three sections: the Packet List pane (top), the Packet Details pane
(middle), and the Packet Bytes pane (bottom). If you selected the correct interface for packet capturing in
Step 3, Wireshark should display the ICMP information in the Packet List pane of Wireshark, similar to the
following example.

a. In the Packet List pane (top section), click the first frame listed. You should see Echo (ping) request
under the Info heading. This should highlight the line blue.
b. Examine the first line in the Packet Details pane (middle section). This line displays the length of the
frame; 74 bytes in this example.
c.

The second line in the Packet Details pane shows that it is an Ethernet II frame. The source and
destination MAC addresses are also displayed.
What is the MAC address of the PCs NIC? ________________________
What is the default gateways MAC address? ______________________

d. You can click the plus (+) sign at the beginning of the second line to obtain more information about the
Ethernet II frame. Notice that the plus sign changes to a minus (-) sign.

2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public.

Page 5 of 7

Lab Using Wireshark to Examine Ethernet Frames

What type of frame is displayed? ________________________________
e. The last two lines displayed in the middle section provide information about the data field of the frame.
Notice that the data contains the source and destination IPv4 address information.
What is the source IP address? _________________________________
What is the destination IP address? ______________________________
f.

You can click any line in the middle section to highlight that part of the frame (hex and ASCII) in the
Packet Bytes pane (bottom section). Click the Internet Control Message Protocol line in the middle
section and examine what is highlighted in the Packet Bytes pane.

What do the last two highlighted octets spell? ______

g. Click the next frame in the top section and examine an Echo reply frame. Notice that the source and
destination MAC addresses have reversed, because this frame was sent from the default gateway router
as a reply to the first ping.
What device and MAC address is displayed as the destination address?
___________________________________________

Step 7: Restart packet capture in Wireshark.

Click the Start Capture icon to start a new Wireshark capture. You will receive a popup window asking if you
would like to save the previous captured packets to a file before starting a new capture. Click Continue
without Saving.

2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public.

Page 6 of 7

Lab Using Wireshark to Examine Ethernet Frames

Step 8: In the command prompt window, ping www.cisco.com.

Step 9: Stop capturing packets.

Step 10: Examine the new data in the packet list pane of Wireshark.
In the first echo (ping) request frame, what are the source and destination MAC addresses?
Source: _________________________________
Destination: ______________________________
What are the source and destination IP addresses contained in the data field of the frame?
Source: _________________________________
Destination: ______________________________
Compare these addresses to the addresses you received in Step 7. The only address that changed is the
destination IP address. Why has the destination IP address changed, while the destination MAC address
remained the same?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Reflection
Wireshark does not display the preamble field of a frame header. What does the preamble contain?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________

2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public.

Page 7 of 7