Capture remote USB traffic

Tansu KAYRAK

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Sep 21, 2020, 12:17:11 PM9/21/20

to USBPcap

I am an electronics engineer and I have no knowledge on networks. I always thought Wireshark was for Ethernet only. Now I've just learnt that Wireshark+USBPcap can capture an USB traffic. And indeed, I could successfully and quite easily capture the traffic of my USB computer mouse.

However, by reading the user's manual of USBPcap, I could not understand if it is possible to have it installed on my windows 10 operated computer to troubleshoot USB communication issues on remote systems : between a Linux operated device and its associated USB stick. I do intend adding the necessary electrical wires to probe the remote signals.

Does anyone have the answer please?

Ameya Deshpande

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Sep 21, 2020, 1:51:37 PM9/21/20

to Tansu KAYRAK, USBPcap

Hi,

I don’t know whether it is possible to use USBPcap on your Windows machine to see the USB packets between a remote Linux and it’s USB device. As far as I understand, it is not possible to do so. You can refer [1] for understanding how USBPcap works.

However, if you want to check the USB packet transfers on Linux machine, you can install Wireshark/Tshark on your remote Linux machine and check the packets on usbmon interface. Please refer [2] for information on how to do it.

Regards
Ameya Deshpande

[1]: https://desowin.org/usbpcap/block_diagram.html
[2]: https://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/USB

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Tomasz Moń

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Sep 22, 2020, 4:00:37 AM9/22/20

to Tansu KAYRAK, USBPcap

On Mon, Sep 21, 2020 at 6:17 PM Tansu KAYRAK <tansu....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am an electronics engineer and I have no knowledge on networks. I always thought Wireshark was for Ethernet only. Now I've just learnt that Wireshark+USBPcap can capture an USB traffic. And indeed, I could successfully and quite easily capture the traffic of my USB computer mouse.

Wireshark is much more than Ethernet. It can dissect other protocols
like Bluetooth or USB, but also e.g. D-Bus.

> However, by reading the user's manual of USBPcap, I could not understand if it is possible to have it installed on my windows 10 operated computer to troubleshoot USB communication issues on remote systems : between a Linux operated device and its associated USB stick. I do intend adding the necessary electrical wires to probe the remote signals.

USBPcap works only on the system running it. You could however capture
the packets on a Linux device using usbmon. On Linux you can capture
using either tshark or tcpdump.

When probing, e.g. with a logic analyzer, the Low and Full speed
signalling can be decoded in sigrok. For High speed capture you would
pretty much have to use USB PHY as otherwise capturing 480 MHz signal
requires pretty decent equipment.
OpenVizsla captures raw Low, Full and High speed packets using USB3343
ULPI PHY. I don't know about any Open Hardware solution for capturing
SuperSpeed traffic.

Tansu KAYRAK

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Sep 23, 2020, 12:27:04 PM9/23/20

to Tomasz Moń, USBPcap

Understood.

I may try to install Wireshark/Tshark on the linux target if I am allowed to do so.

Otherwise I will request a dedicated USB protocol analyzer device whatever the price.